• DuPage County prosecutors announced today that Jacob Nodarse and Johnny Borizov will not face the death penalty if convicted for the Kramer family triple murder in Darien earlier this year.
• Police continue to investigate a murder-suicide that occurred yesterday evening at a Chicago Ridge mall.
• A federal lawsuit alleges that Hyatt Hotel heir Matthew Pritzker was involved with a hit-and-run accident that injured a bicyclist and that police helped to cover up the accident.

A pair of crime scenes on the Southwest Side has left a body count of six for police to investigate. The first was in the city's West Elsdon neighborhood. Three people are dead in what police are calling a double murder-suicide shooting that occurred last night in the 4200 block of West 55th Street. Police suspect a woman and another man were shot dead by the woman's estranged husband who then killed himself. It's at least the city's third multiple victim domestic-related incident in the last month, coming just weeks after a domestic-related incident left five dead in Marquette Park and a murder-suicide at th Loop Old Navy store left two dead. more ›

Police are investigating what appears to be a murder-suicide in Addison. A man, his wife, and their two children were found in the house when police arrived on the scene earlier this morning. Addison police spokeswoman Officer Megan Freeman told the Tribune, "Preliminary investigation indicates this was not a random act of violence, but an isolated incident at this location." [Tribune] more ›

• Mayor Daley and Governor Quinn are defending the $16 million price tag on the state's tourism spending. If gubernatorial opponent Dan Hynes thinks that's steep now, wait til October 3rd when we might add roughly $4 billion to that.
• Officials downstate are investigating a brutal quintuple homicide in which a couple and three of their children were shot dead in Beason; a 3-year-old girl survived the shooting, but police haven't released any additional details on her condition.
• Investigators have ruled that the fire-related deaths of a couple in their Des Plaines-area home was a murder-suicide.

The town of Wilmette was shaken yesterday when a man killed his wife, her son, and then himself. While police have still not officially released the names of those involved, church and school officials have confirmed that Richard Wiley, 54, took the lives of his wife Kathryn Wiley-Motes and her son, Christopher Motes, 17, a senior at New Trier High School, before taking his own life. The bodies were discovered by police in the couples home which is next door to the church, the First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette, where Wiley-Motes worked. more ›