Background: News footage of Adam Beckerink in court in June (WLS). Inset: Caitlin Tracey (Michalik Funeral Home).
A man who was just convicted for domestic violence against his late wife is now charged in Illinois for her murder, a year after she was found dead in their Chicago condo.
Adam Beckerink, 47, pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge in Michigan”s Berrien County last week and was sentenced to 93 days in jail plus two years’ probation. That case closed just shy of a year after Beckerink’s wife, 36-year-old Caitlin Tracey, was found dead at the bottom of a 24-story stairwell in the high-rise condo the couple shared in Chicago.
On Monday, court records showed that a charge of first-degree murder in connection with Tracey’s death was filed against Beckerink in Cook County.
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Local ABC affiliate WLS reported on Monday that a criminal complaint and an arrest warrant against Beckerink on a charge of first-degree murder were filed in a Cook County court and signed by a judge. Police now allege that Beckerink was responsible for Tracey’s death in October 2024, when her body was found “pulverized” and her foot severed. Despite a documented history of domestic violence between Beckerink and Tracey, he had not been charged with her death and had previously only been identified as a suspect.
WLS reported that Tracey’s mother called Beckerink a “monster” during his sentencing hearing last week. Dr. Monica Tracey told the judge in that case, “No matter how much we tried to save her, she was caught in a cycle of control,” adding, “It isn’t just her death that haunts us. It’s the slow-moving destruction of her life.”
The Tracey family released a statement following the filing of the murder charge in Cook County that read in part, “We dearly miss Caitlin as do her friends. Our family hopes that during the murder case against Adam Beckerink, that the truth about the last months of Caitlin’s life and the events leading to her tragic death are revealed, so our wonderful daughter can finally be laid to rest.”
Beckerink is currently in jail, serving his sentence for domestic violence in Michigan’s Berrien County.
