Will County Triple Murder Defendant Pleads Not Guilty

WILL COUNTY — An Indiana woman charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of her children's father, his mother and his stepfather pleaded not guilty in Will County court Friday.

Jenna Strouble, 30, of St. John, Indiana, is charged with nine counts of first-degree murder in the March 23 shooting deaths of her on-and-off romantic partner Jake Lambert, his mother Stacy Forde, 54, and her husband Patrick Forde, 55, at their home in Crete Township, police said. Strouble and Lambert shared two children, a 3-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter.

After being ordered detained until trial earlier this week, Strouble appeared in court Friday alongside Chicago-based attorney David Drwencke and entered her plea, according to court records.

Prosecutor Wiktoria Oginski of the Will County State's Attorney's Office has argued that Strouble immediately confessed to her sister upon returning home from committing the overnight triple murder in nearby Crete. Strouble, who shares children ages 4 and 3 with Lambert, "still maintained an occasional intimate relationship" with him, according to prosecutors.

Strouble is alleged to have told Will County Sheriff's detectives that she "went there with an intention," prosecutors said. After picking up Lambert, Strouble had him recline face-down in the passenger seat of his vehicle and remove his cap and shirt so that Strouble could spend the next 20 minutes giving him a massage.

As she massaged him, the prosecutor says she pointed the gun at the back of his head for an estimated eight minutes, she told police, at times contemplating setting the gun down and "thinking she would do it another day." She then shot Lambert in the back of the head, prosecutors say Strouble told police.

Strouble has not provided much of a motive for the killings, stating that she didn't like the way Lambert spoke to their children and that she found his parents to be overbearing.

After killing Lambert, prosecutors say she returned to the Crete Township home where he lived with his mother and stepfather. She opened fire from the front porch when Patrick Forde arrived at the door, according to Oginski. Stacy Forde was fatally shot as she came down the stairs.

Autopsies detailed that Lambert died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Patrick Forde died from multiple gunshot wounds, with 17 wounds noted. Stacy Forde was shot three times.

Strouble had purchased a gun in December and also purchased a silencer as part of her killing plot "because she didn't want to make noise," the prosecutor argued during a hearing on Monday.

"This is not a heat of the moment ... this is a carefully planned killing of three different victims," Oginski told Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak.

"Not only did Strouble end the life of her romantic partner, Lambert, she also drove to his parents' home and "carried out two more killings."

Strouble later told detectives she contemplated the idea of killing her own parents as well, "but didn't think she could get away with it," Oginski told Judge Bertani.

Strouble then allegedly went home and called her sister, alerting her to call authorities, officials said. Strouble was later taken into custody at her parents' home in Saint John, Indiana.

Strouble is next due in court April 20. The case has been reassigned to Judge Amy Christiansen, court records show.

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