Authorities have called a news conference for later today to announce "significant new information" regarding the shooting death of a Fox Lake, IL, police officer, and multiple law enforcement sources with knowledge of the investigation have told the Chicago Tribune that authorities are expected to announce that he took his own life.
The sources say that authorities believe Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, 52, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sept. 1.
The new information comes two months after officers found Gliniewicz mortally wounded in a remote, marshy area of the village near the Wisconsin border.
Around 8 a.m. Sept. 1, Gliniewicz radioed that he was pursuing two white males and a black male. Dispatchers lost contact with Gliniewicz, a 30-year veteran and a fixture in Fox Lake, and responding officers found him shot and his .40-caliber handgun rested nearby.
A few days later, Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd said he couldn't at that point rule out suicide or any other manner of death. A month after Gliniewicz died, police said he'd been shot twice with his own weapon — once in his protective vest and once in the upper left area of his torso. But authorities at that time said they could not yet rule on a manner of death, and police said there were signs of a struggle at the scene.