Woman Stabbed To Death By Recently Released Relative: Task Force

WAUKEGAN, IL — About 12 hours after he was released from Lake County Jail, Jeffrey Thrall traveled to the Park City home of a relative and stabbed her to death, authorities said. Police said he was found with the women's car at a gas station a few miles up Green Bay Road from the scene of the killing.

The 60-year-old had had spent a year behind bars on a previous charge before being released around noon on Monday, according to Sgt. Chris Covelli, spokesman for the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force.

Police in Park City got a call of a bloodied woman lying on the floor of a manufactured home in the 3100 block of 7th Street and not breathing around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to a task force release. Paramedics from the Gurnee Fire Department arrived, but the 68-year-old woman was pronounced dead at the scene. Her identity has not yet been released by the Lake County coroner's office following an autopsy Tuesday morning.

Park City detectives requested the assistance of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force, it said. Detectives and task force investigators learned the woman's car was missing and soon identified a relative of the woman as a person of interest.

Investigators found her car about 3.5 miles north at a gas station at a service station around the intersection of Green Bay Road and Sunset Avenue in Waukegan, along with a man matching the description of the person they were looking for, according to the task force statement.

Prosecutors approved two charges of first degree murder for Thrall, who has past addresses in Beach Park, North Chicago and Florida. At a bond hearing Tuesday, a judge ordered him held in lieu of a $500,000 cash portion of his bond ahead of his next court appearance Dec. 19.

No attorney information for Thrall, or details of the past charge that led to his previous time at the jail, was immediately available Tuesday evening.