Episode 1: Cold Saturday

Summary

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CounterClock – Episode 1: "Cold Saturday"

Host: Delia D'Ambra
Date: May 28, 2026
Main Theme:
Investigative journalist Delia D’Ambra introduces the season’s deep-dive: the infamous, unsolved 2008 Lane Bryant mass shooting in Tinley Park, Illinois. The episode reconstructs the morning of the crime, explores firsthand accounts from survivors and first responders, and sets up the mystery that continues to haunt the community.

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Episode Overview

Delia D’Ambra explores one of the deadliest—and most perplexing—unsolved mass killings in modern American history: the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. Through survivor memories, police insight, and the emotional aftermath, Episode 1 lays the foundation for a season focused on reigniting interest in a case left chillingly unresolved.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Setting the Scene (01:00–02:46)

• Delia retraces the steps on the crime scene’s anniversary, visiting the site (now a TJ Maxx) in Tinley Park.
• The mundane Saturday morning in February 2008 contrasts sharply with the horror about to unfold.
• Quote:
  “Nearly 18 years earlier, on February 2, 2008, the very ground I'm standing on was a crime scene. A horrific crime scene. It's the former site of one of the worst unsolved mass slayings in modern American history.” — Delia D’Ambra (02:29)

The Crime and Immediate Response (02:46–14:45)

• Flashbacks and media recaps paint the immediate aftermath: six women are found shot, five fatally, execution-style.
• Ashley Flowers (Crime Junkie) describes her own plea for new leads and the social media response.
• Quote:
  “He didn’t just bring a weapon. He also brought his own duct tape for holding up this store.” — Ashley Flowers (03:41)
• Delia receives the case from Ashley, beginning her intensive investigation.
• Marie, an employee at the neighboring Sally’s Beauty Supply, recounts the loud “clanking sound” she heard—gunfire mistaken for store activities—and the moment a police officer tells her:
  “It’s a bloodbath next door. Lock the doors.” — Officer to Marie, recalled by Delia (07:23)
• The swift, large-scale police response begins; Tinley Park police, FBI, and others arrive.
• Quote:
  “By the time I arrived at the scene, the store was already sealed... We had a perimeter, an inner perimeter and an outer perimeter. We closed down that entire strip, front, back.” — Rick Bruno (09:46)

Survivor’s Perspective and Police Insights (14:45–17:57)

• The harrowing story of the only survivor: the shooter forced employees and customers to the back, covered their heads, and shot them. The survivor played dead after being shot.
• Quote:
  “She realized she wasn’t dead and she just played dead until she knew it was safe.” — Dawn Palacek, paramedic (15:02)
• The survivor’s eyewitness account becomes key; a basic description of the assailant is circulated.

Lockdown, Aftermath, and Community Ripple Effects (16:46–21:32)

• Full plaza lockdown; tactical searches of every store and car.
• Media converges; the small suburb is thrust onto the national stage.
• Quote:
  “One thing I always tell these small suburbs who think, well, it’s never going to happen here... Tell that to the folks in Tinley Park.” — Ben Bradley (18:10)
• Community leaders grapple with overwhelming media and public fear.
• Quote:
  “Extremely scared, especially when the killer still has not been caught. You know, was he walking through my neighborhood? This is a village. This isn’t happening.” — Mayor Ed Zabracki (30:02)

Investigation – Evidence and Challenges (21:32–23:36)

• Lack of security cameras in Lane Bryant; only adjacent Sally’s had operational staff but no useful footage.
• Police work meticulously to reconstruct a timeline, relying on receipts and store logs.
• Employee Marie expresses survivor’s guilt and frustration at being unable to help.
• Quote:
  “Could I have been more helpful if I was up at the front? Or could he have come into our store if he saw someone in there?... All those things were, like, flooding through my head.” — Marie (23:02)

Survivor’s Guilt: Near Misses (24:45–27:45)

• Erica Karsten, scheduled to work that morning, was saved by a last-minute change.
• Quote:
  “I was like, I should have been there. Why wasn’t I there? ... Maybe if I was there, things could have been different.”— Erica Karsten (26:33)
• Erica considered shopping the morning of the shooting, another chilling “near miss.”

Official Theories, Media Handling, and War Room Measures (27:51–31:17)

• Police publicly maintain robbery is the likely motive, decline to speculate further.
• The identity and safety of the surviving eyewitness are vigorously protected.
• Law enforcement sets up an impenetrable police "war room," going so far as to tinfoil windows and monitor for radio intercepts out of paranoia that someone might be listening in.
• Quote:
  “My colleagues and I noticed that tinfoil was going up on some of the exterior windows... Somebody picked up something on a meter.” — Rick Bruno and Ed Zabracki (30:52–31:08)

Lingering Questions and Season Preview (31:17–32:36)

• Despite thousands of tips and intense scrutiny, the case remains unsolved.
• Delia teases her findings around the details that might yield answers, including a composite sketch from the survivor’s description.
• Quote:
  “If there’s one thing I’ve come to realize, though, it’s this: Never stop looking. Because it’s the little things that often are the most important.” — Delia D’Ambra (31:46)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “It’s a bloodbath next door. Lock the doors. Don’t let anyone in or out.”
  (Officer to Marie, 07:23)

• “An execution, plain and simple. There’s no other way to describe it…that’s what I would describe it as.”
  (Rick Bruno, 11:31)

• “She just said that he came in and he started robbing the place and then started making all the women go in the back room and then started covering their heads and their hands.”
  (Survivor, via Dawn Palacek, 15:26)

• “I was like, I should have been there. I should have been there. Like, why wasn’t I there? Why did I oversleep?”
  (Erica Karsten, 26:33)

• “If this happened two blocks from my house, I’d be concerned too.”
  (Rick Bruno, 29:22)

• “My colleagues and I noticed that tinfoil was going up on some of the exterior windows... Somebody picked up something on a meter.”
  (Rick Bruno and Ed Zabracki, 30:52–31:08)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:00 – Delia sets the scene at the current-day site.
• 02:46 – Flashbacks to the 2008 massacre and news clips.
• 05:00–08:53 – Marie, next-door employee, describes what she heard and her interaction with police.
• 09:01–11:43 – Tinley Park police commander details early police response and discovery of the victims.
• 14:45–16:46 – Arrival and statement from the lone survivor; police circulate suspect description.
• 17:35–20:29 – Lockdown sweeps, media swarm, and regional police cooperation.
• 21:32–23:36 – Adjacent store investigation; survivor’s guilt and timeline construction.
• 24:57–27:51 – Erica Karsten’s near-miss; survivor’s guilt themes.
• 28:02–29:22 – Official police theory (robbery), media and public safety.
• 30:29–31:17 – Police “war room” and extraordinary security measures.
• 31:46–32:36 – Season preview and focus on never-stopped investigation.

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Tone and Style

The episode maintains Delia D’Ambra’s signature measured, investigative tone. There is palpable solemnity from witnesses and officials, combined with the raw emotion of survivor’s guilt. The sense of unresolved trauma and community displacement is ever-present, with a hint of determination and hope that new details may yet come to light.

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Summary

Episode 1 establishes the emotional and investigative groundwork for the season, blending chilling recollections, intimate survivor testimony, and procedural insight. The Lane Bryant mass shooting is not just a case file, but a tragedy still echoing and unresolved—one that Delia D’Ambra is determined to re-examine, detail by detail.

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Next episode: “Five Names and a Face”—Delia dives into survivor descriptions and the creation of a composite sketch from the most elusive figure: the offender.

Transcript

[Survivor of the Lane Bryant shooting]

Since he got out, bad things keep happening.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

Cape Fear, a new series, is streaming June 5 on Apple TV. Why would I want to hurt you? Why? Starring Academy Award winner Javier Bardem. Why? And Academy Award nominee Amy Adams.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

He is coming after my family.

[Mike O'Connell (Tinley Park Police Chief)]

Why,

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

Kate Fear streaming June 5th on Apple TV.

[Ashley Flowers (Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but not in the way you've heard before, and not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice. Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

This is episode one Cold Saturday A quick note. If, while listening to this season, you recognize any of the names or locations that are being discussed and have information you'd like to share, send me an [e-mail]. It's just after 10 o' clock in the morning on a Saturday in early November 2025. I've just walked into a TJ Maxx retail store in Tinley Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago about 45 minutes southwest of downtown. It's freezing outside with a fresh layer of snow on the ground. The first snowfall of the winter. Luck. I wiggle my stiff fingers out of my gloves and snake my way between mountains of holiday inventory and other shoppers. Sorry, excuse me.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

You're okay.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Until I'm in the far back right corner of the store. I pause, glance at the worn floor a few feet in either direction, and then lean against a couple of throw pillows that have been squeezed into a shelf behind me. I watch a mom push past me with a kid in her car, a group of young women crowded around the cosmetics, and an employee sneaking off to check their phone. No one knows I'm not here to shop. Quite frankly, no one knows why I'm here. Except me. Nearly 18 years earlier, on February 2, 2008, the very ground I'm standing on was a crime scene. A horrific crime scene. It's the former site of one of the worst unsolved mass slayings in modern American history.

[News Reporter / Media Correspondent]

A deadly shooting rampage at upscale Lane Bryant Ladies clothing store. Six women gunned down execution style.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

It started out as just another day in a popular clothing store, but it ended in a bloody massacre.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The search continues for the gunman who tried to rob the store before opening

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

fire, shooting six women.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The February 2008 Lane Bryant massacre is a true crime incident that's been publicized for nearly two decades. Sleuths of all kinds have broached it in one form or another, including a good friend of mine.

[Ashley Flowers (TikTok and Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

All right, guys, I want to talk to you about the Lane Bryant murders and I actually am going to need your help.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

When Ashley Flowers posted a TikTok about the case, saying she wanted to cover it on her podcast Crime Junkie, she recapped the high level details in the way TikTok's algorithm blesses short and sweet.

[Ashley Flowers (TikTok and Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

He didn't just bring a weapon. He also brought his own duct tape for holding up this store.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The post was intended to specifically summon people who were in the know.

[Ashley Flowers (TikTok and Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

We're trying to get in touch with as many people as possible. So if you have any connection to this case, if you know anything, if you are local and you've heard anything, please get in touch.

[Ashley Flowers (Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

You can DM me, you can email

[Ashley Flowers (TikTok and Crime Junkie Podcast Host)]

tipsudiochuck, but this is where I need you guys. Do your TikTok thing.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The tips and information flooded in after that, but what Ashley and the team didn't anticipate was how much information they'd get. How many things in this case had never been explored in depth. So they kicked it over to me with an email subject line next season of CC?. And here we are more than a year later. This is Counterclock Season 8, an investigation into the notorious Lane Bryant murders. I'm your host, Delia d'. Ambra. Saturday morning, February 2, 2008 was an ordinary start to work for a woman named Marie.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

I worked at the retail location right next to the Lane Bryant. We opened kind of at the same time and there was no one else in the plaza. It's very quiet side of the Brookside Marketplace where I think only us and Lane Bryant were open.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Marie's store, a Sally's beauty supply, was in a section of connected storefronts across from and next to several large parking lots as well as a handful of big box stores. Saturday mornings were usually hopping, so Marie and her manager got right to it.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

We always open at 10 o'. Clock. I would get there probably 9:45, 9:30 to 9:45 and you know, unlock the door, turn off the alarm, lock it after myself. And that morning I think my boss entered at the same time with me. So I had locked us both in.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Shortly after 10 o', clock, Marie and her colleague unlocked the front door and hurried to finish up Their final tasks.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

I was in the back room kind of just doing my opening procedures, waiting for a customer to come in. So I was doing my paperwork, and I remember hearing this very loud clanking sound.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The noise had come from the Lane Bryant women's clothing store, the retail unit directly next door, which shared a wall with Sally's.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

It made me, like, kind of like stand up and question, like, what was that? The first thing that went through my mind was that they were doing maybe a merchandising reset and someone dropped a metal shelving unit or something like that. It was very loud, and it was very, like a high pitched clank. It sounded like if someone maybe dropped a shelf and it bounced a couple times because I heard it, you know, several times in a row. My boss was behind me at the time on a phone call, and I looked back at her and it didn't seem like she heard anything. So I was like, okay, maybe it was nothing. And I kind of put my head back down, was doing my paperwork. I would say, like, five to seven minutes later, I hear this shouting from the front of the store.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

She thought, all right, time to hit the floor and sell some hair care.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

In my head, I thought it was a customer. Because typically when customers don't see someone, right when they walk in and they're open, they're like, hello, is anyone here? But it was a man's voice. And I peeked my head around the corner. I saw a police officer. And he was like, is anyone here? Are you the only one in the building? And I was like, no, it's just myself and my boss. She's in the back on a phone call. And he said, did anyone come in and out? And I was like, no, it's just been us all morning. And he's like, it's a bloodbath next door. Lock the doors. Don't let anyone in or out.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

It's a bloodbath next door. Marie couldn't even begin to comprehend those words.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

What does that mean? Like, what is going on? I started freaking out. I locked the door. I did what he said. At that point, we both went to the front of the store to kind of, like, peek our heads in the window to, like, see what was going on. And not too much time after that, more cops started showing up. Ambulances. And we're like, oh, my God, something really, really bad is happening.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Marie and her colleague didn't know any details in that moment, but her brain was already connecting the dots.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

I was like, oh, my God. That was the noise that I heard. It was what was happening next door. And, you know, that sinking in was, you know, terrifying. The last thing in my mind was it was gunshots. That wasn't the first thing that went through my mind. The first thing that went through my mind was like, they're working on something.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Before that clanking sound, did you hear any kind of yelling or voices or anything coming from next door?

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

I really don't remember any shouting or any screaming, any voices really. And it wasn't really normal to hear voices coming from next door. I think that's what made me kind of sit up when I heard the clanking sound because it wasn't normal to hear anything coming from, like we couldn't hear music playing or anything like that, even when it was super quiet.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

She was an ear witness to a crime that immediately mobilized nearly every member of emergency management in the village of Tinley Park.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

I had just finished, I believe it was a 10 mile run that morning.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

That's Rick Bruno. He was a commander for Tinley Park Police Department in February 2008.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

I got into my unmarked swag car to drive home and I heard all kinds of chatter on the radio and I'm like, this does not sound like normal chatter. So I got on the cell phone and contacted the comm center and they said, oh, we've been looking for you. You know, this is what happened. And I said, I'll be right there. So I stopped here, put on some clothes and went directly to the scene.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

When Rick arrived at Brookside Marketplace shortly after 11am Things were chaotic, but controlled.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

By the time I arrived at the scene, the store was already sealed. I advised one officer to stand at the door. Nobody gets in or out. We had a perimeter, an inner perimeter and an outer perimeter. We closed down that entire strip, front, back.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

A small group of first responding officers brought Rick up to speed. One of the uniformed guys explained that when a report of shots fired came over dispatch, he'd been in the middle of responding to a minor service call at the target, which was within walking distance of the Lane Bryant.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

We had an officer within 300 yards of that store when the call came in.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The call Rick is referring to is this 911 call, 911 emergency. The woman's muffled voice you just heard whisper. Lane Bryant was the clothing store's manager, Rhoda McFarland. She placed the call at 10:44am the full audio has never been publicly released, but I'll get to why that is in a later episode. For now, what's important for you to know is that within a minute or two of authorities receiving Rhoda's 911 call, the TPPD officer, who was already at Brookside Marketplace, arrived at the Lane Bryant. However, he didn't immediately see anyone inside or any sign of an assailant. When he walked past the checkout counter and fitting rooms and eventually into the store's back stock room, he found something horrific. Six women bound with duct tape and lying face down, side by side on the floor. Their heads had been veiled with women's underwear and clothing, and all of them had been shot in the head.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

An execution, plain and simple. There's no other way to describe it. I mean, we've all seen, you know, the movies and things like that, and that's what I would describe it as.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Rick's boss, Mike o', Connell, who was Tinley Park's police chief at the time, was. Was immediately summoned to the scene. And while he was on his way, he dialed one of his closest friends, who happened to be the village's mayor, Ed Zabraki.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

I got a call from Mike Michael Connell, and he said he was in the car and he was on his way to Brookside Glen because they had an incident there, that there might have been some people who were shot. And I said, okay, keep me in a loop, let me know what's going on. Probably 15, 20 minutes later, he came out. He came back and he said, ed, you better come out here. I came out and I immediately was stopped. There was a perimeter. There were police from probably a half a dozen different suburbs already there, and they had all the roads blocked. Nobody was going in, nobody was going out. It was like 32 degrees and it was a mixture of rain, sleet and snow. I saw the Lane Bryant store and I just pulled in and I was probably about 4 or 500ft from it, and I stopped. As I stopped, I called Mike and I said, hey, I'm here. And he said, I'll be right there. So within 30 seconds, I saw him coming towards me and he had tears in his eyes. I'll always remember his face. I says, mike, what do we got? He says, I think we got five dead, Ed.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

That's right, five dead, not six. There was a survivor.

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[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Amongst the dead in the back room of the Lane Bryant, there was one woman who was still moving and kept moving.

[Survivor of the Lane Bryant shooting]

She said she heard the gun shout, so she, you know, she just fell down and she said she realized she wasn't dead and she just played dead until she knew it was safe.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

That's Dawn Palacek, one of the first paramedics on scene. When she arrived, she met a woman in her early 30s who was being escorted out of the Lane Bryant store. Dawn put the patient in the back of her ambulance and told the driver to head for the local hospital. During the ride, Don spoke with the woman and learned that she was an employee of the store and the sole survivor of the homicides.

[Survivor of the Lane Bryant shooting]

She just said that he came in and he started robbing the place and then started making all the women go in the back room and then started covering their heads and their hands. And then he found out the girls calling 911 and started shooting everyone in the back that had missionaries style like one by one.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

As dawn listened, she removed duct tape from the survivor's hands and checked her for injuries. Dawn was astonished that the woman was alert, let alone sitting in front of her at all.

[Survivor of the Lane Bryant shooting]

She was talking, you know, she just got grace. It was a grave like a scrap,

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

banged up for sure, but not dead. And that was absolutely crucial for police. They had a living eyewitness who once she was ready to could give them more information about what happened as well as what the perpetrator looked like during the first hour or two. The only description police had of the lone assailant was that he was a black male in his 20s or 30s, with a husky build. More importantly, they knew he was armed. So authorities shut down brookside marketplace and the adjacent roadways. It was one of those stop everything kind of lockdowns. Customers who were inside the plaza were asked to remain in place and vehicles were stopped one by one.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

We checked every single car that was was there. I mean, people were trying to think outside the box. Where'd this guy go? Where are we vulnerable right now? You know, you start wondering, okay, we've been hit, Are we going to get hit again?

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

We don't know who he is. He's still out there. Was this a random thing? Did he have a design? Is he going to do it again?

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

The entire shopping area was gone through, searched. Each store was searched by tactical officers to make sure the guy wasn't hiding somewhere in one of the stores.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Watching everything unfold in real time were Marie and her manager. They'd been sternly instructed to stay put inside the Sally's beauty supply, but you better believe they had their faces glued to the inside of their front window.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

They had built the tents. They put up this big long tent in the parking lot so we couldn't see after that, like we're assuming that they were taking the victims out. At that point, we saw the coroner arrive and the FBI was there. Yeah, it was just kind of crazy. Like we were just watching the whole thing go down from the window. Because they had the whole plaza on lockdown.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Within an hour. Unmarked vehicles started showing up. Then a mobile command center, and eventually lots and lots of reporters like my

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

friends calling me and being like, I just saw you on cnn.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

One thing I always tell these small suburbs who think, well, it's never going to happen here, so I don't have to worry about this is tell that to the folks in tinley park.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Because the village of tinley park is a suburb of one of the largest cities and media markets in America. Mayor Ed sobrocki knew that handling the press was gonna need to be somebody's full time job.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

We gotta be prepared for the press because we're probably 45 minutes to an hour away from being inundated with the press. So we're going to have to deal with them. We had helicopters out by 1 o'.

[Mike O'Connell (Tinley Park Police Chief)]

Clock.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

Even though the weather was bad and the ceilings were low, they were out. They were very aggressive and in some cases, on an individual basis. Very difficult to deal with. They wanted information that we just did not have. Number one. Well, why don't you have it? Hey, it just happened two hours ago. Come on.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

You know, one of those reporters on the ground, albeit not one that was giving Ed a hard time, was journalist Ben Bradley.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

I actually grew up just a couple of towns from Tinley park, so this whole community is where I spent a lot of my youth.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

It made sense that the Chicago TV station Ben worked for at the time would send him a local boy, to cover the story.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

You know, I was a young reporter working weekends, and it was a bitterly cold Saturday, and our newsroom learned about reports of a shooting in the shopping center. And they sent me out there. They had cordoned off that corner of the shopping center. Law enforcement from jurisdictions all over the place were there. There were helicopters in the air. They were searching subdivisions because they thought, well, whoever did this must be close by. This type of crime doesn't happen. And certainly the person who did this isn't going to get away.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

That was former TPPD commander Rick Bruno's thinking, too.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

With the people that we had, the skills, the skillful people that we had, I really thought we'd have the offender by within an hour or two hours.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

And that's because in addition to resources from Tinley park police and the FBI, another investigative body came on board very quickly to help handle the situation. That entity was the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

The task force was comprised of officers from the surrounding suburbs and the detectives from surrounding suburbs. And they all had expertise and skills and training to address these types of situations. Armed robberies, homicides, serious crimes like that. We didn't call them out on a lot of stuff because we didn't have a lot of need for them. But this situation was. Was obviously one where we needed the manpower. We needed the expertise. We weren't a sleepy little town, and we had had homicides before, but nothing on this scale.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

I don't care whether you're in Orland Park, Arlington Heights, Naperville, you pick the town. There's certain expertise that each town cannot afford. Okay. That's why you have the South Suburban Task Force. They brought in things that were needed.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

That store was emptied little by little. Everything was photographed, everything was processed.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

I remember one of the things they did. They came in after the bodies were taken out. They came in and sprayed some kind of gas into the building that would bring out fingerprints.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

In addition to sweeping for forensic evidence, investigators scoured for video surveillance, which The Lane Bryant unfortunately did not have. It wasn't the store's policy at the time to require security cameras inside, so no luck there. Next, detectives visited the adjacent stores. Most of the units next to where Lane Bryant was located were vacant and waiting to be leased. The shopping center had only been open for about two years. There was a mattress store and a nail salon on the far right end of the strip plaza. But the only neighboring unit to Lane Bryant that was actually occupied was the Sallies Beauty Supply, where Marie and her manager were sheltering in place and periodically interacting with law enforcement.

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

They came in, asked a bunch of questions. You know, when do you open? Do you have any security footage? Did you see anyone come in or out of the building next door? They also wanted to know, like, they wanted reports of, like, when I clocked in that morning, like, proof of that. And then they also ran a bunch of stuff to make sure that the clock on our register was accurate. So they had us printing receipts, doing fake transactions just to get a real sense of, like, exact timeline. And if the timeline that I was speaking to them about matched.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Did they take any kind of prints or anything from you guys?

[Marie (Sally's Beauty Supply Employee)]

No. I feel like I was in shock that whole day because, you know, just thinking, like, I didn't see anyone. Could I have been more helpful if I was, like, you know, up at the front of the store? Or could he have come into our store if he saw someone in there? Because maybe we looked closed because the only two people that were in the store were in the back room, not visible. All those things were, like, flooding through my head. And my family and my friends are all trying to call me because they all know that I work right there. So I think my phone just shut off. I was, like, getting so many text messages and phone calls at the same time.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Another person's phone that was going off was Erica Karsten's Elaine Bryant employee, who by sheer luck, was about to learn the best and worst news of her life.

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[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Erica Karstens was supposed to be working on Saturday, February 2, 2008, but at the last minute, she'd been told she didn't have to come in.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

I worked the night before the incident happened, and I was actually supposed to work the next day on my birthday because I had stayed later. It was a snow day, so a lot of. We had a lot of traffic that day from snow day people. And I had offered to stay extra hours because I needed them. And the store manager, Rhoda, was on duty as well. And she was like, hey, it's your birthday, right? Like, yeah, it's my birthday tomorrow. Not a big deal. I'll come and I'll go out afterwards. She's like, tell you what, she just said, I'll make a couple phone calls, see if I can get someone to cover your shift. I'm like, no, it's fine. I'll work. It's. It's fine. Like, I don't care. And, yeah, so I ended up staying later that night and then not having to come in the next morning.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Erica had taken full advantage of the reprieve and slept in on Saturday morning, completely unaware of what had happened at her job.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

I had gotten up about 10 o'. Clock. Usually I get up at like 6, 6:30 in the morning, and I had gotten up at 10 and I'm like. And all of a sudden, like, little dings on people's phones and house phones are ringing and you know, oh, we heard about this. And I'm like, yeah, no big deal. Like, whatever. It can't be real. Like, I'll just go back to sleep, whatever.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

But it was real. As Erica would soon find out, more

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

people started calling, like, is Erica home? Is she here? Is she at work? Is what's going on? And I'm like, my parents still at that point hadn't heard anything. They're just asking if I'm home. And everyone's like, yeah, she's home, she's sleeping. Like, she's not up yet. And that's when we slowly got news of what had happened and what had transpired.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Similar to Marie, Erica felt an immediate Pang of grief, confusion, and survivor's guilt.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

I was like, I should have been there. I should have been there. Like, why wasn't I there? Why did I oversleep? And I'm like, maybe if I was there, things could have been different. I'm like, man, like, if I was there, maybe I could have done something. Maybe I could have, you know, seen something or done something to prevent it or even slow it down or just something. Like, I was in shivers and I was a mess. And then my parents were, you know, they tried to keep things kind of calm for me because it was my birthday. They still wanted me to be happy, but I'm like, how can I be happy with everything going on?

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

What's more, if Erica had not overslept, she might have still been at Lane Bryant as a customer.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

I had nothing to worse. I was going to go out to Lane Bryant in the morning because I knew in the morning it wasn't super busy first thing in the morning, because I'm like, hey, that's when the stuff is first open. That's when everything's put away. And I kind of knew which outfits I wanted. So I was going to go there and then go out to breakfast and then kind of just chill and hang out with family until I went out later that night.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

But for reasons she will never understand, Erica did not end up inside the Lane Bryant that particular morning. A double near miss. As she learned more information about the shooting, she knew that security at the Lane Bryant and Brookside Marketplace as a whole wasn't very robust. But that's because up until this incident, it didn't have to be.

[Erica Karsten (Lane Bryant employee)]

Never had to call the cops, never had to call security guards, anything, which is probably why they never thought to put cameras or, you know, security guard on us.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

By press time on Saturday evening, investigators had cobbled together as much information as they were comfortable sharing.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

Four shoppers and a store manager were killed.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The official theory, Tinley Park's police Chief Mike o' Connell went with live on CNN with Nancy Grace, was that the shooting appeared to be a random robbery gone terribly wrong.

[News Reporter / Media Correspondent]

Let's go out to Chief Mike o', Connell, chief of police at Tenley Park Police Department. Chief, thank you for being with us. What do we know about the perpetrator? Why do you believe he staked out the store?

[Mike O'Connell (Tinley Park Police Chief)]

Right now, we don't have evidence that says the individual necessarily staked out the store, but certainly we know that that particular store was at Target. Our investigation has yet to reveal why he chose that store.

[News Reporter / Media Correspondent]

You believe the Store was a target?

[Mike O'Connell (Tinley Park Police Chief)]

No, I believe why he chose the store, we have yet to determine. But obviously, since he did commit his crime in there, it was a store that he chose and we have yet to determine why.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

The main points police stressed to the media were one, the gunman was still at large, and two, the survivor was strictly off limits. Tenley park police commander Rick Bruno describes the woman as emotionally raw and says police are interviewing her in stages.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

We were worried about her safety. Her identity was kept as quiet as possible because we didn't know if this guy would go back and try to finish the job.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Public fear was at an all time high and everyone felt it.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

If this happened two blocks from my house, I'd be concerned too.

[Survivor of the Lane Bryant shooting]

I live in that town and I was overweight at that time. That was my store I shopped at. To this day, I do not go into Elaine Bryant.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

This crime shook the southwest suburbs and all of Chicago. These five women were all from different walks of life. They were all in the store that day for different reasons and they never came home.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Mayor Ed Zabracki knew that his little village had a full fledged mass casualty event to grapple with. And the sleepy suburban residents would likely never be the same.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

Extremely scared, especially when the killer still has not been caught. You know, was he walking through my neighborhood? This is a village. This isn't happening.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Investigators worked Saturday evening and night trying to confirm the identities of the five other victims. They also established a permanent headquarters where they could prepare to usher in loved ones and confidentially sift through the avalanche of information they were collecting.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

We were getting thousands of tips, literally thousands of tips.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

A room at the Tinley park police station transformed in a matter of hours.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

By 5 o' clock, we had a war room. The war room was the cafeteria of the police department.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

And the level of security authorities would establish there was unlike anything I'd ever heard of before.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

My colleagues and I noticed that tinfoil was going up on some of the exterior windows and we thought that was a little odd.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

They had some kind of meter to detect, I don't know, radio signals or something, Quote, unquote. Somebody picked up something on a meter.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

So there was the thought that someone could be listening in.

[Ed Zabracki (Mayor of Tinley Park)]

Could have been anybody interested.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

Why such drastic measures? Who is listening? Over the past 18 years, those questions and many more have gone unanswered. And next to nothing has come out of law enforcement's Lane Bryant war room.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

You didn't go in there unless you had a reason to go in there.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

We don't know if a lead is in one of those file boxes. We don't know if somebody that police interviewed early on is the killer.

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

If there's one thing I've come to realize, though, it's this. Never stop looking. Because it's the little things that often are the most important. In this season, I've uncovered more little things than I was prepared for, especially when it comes to the most elusive figure, in this case, the offender.

[Rick Bruno (Tinley Park Police Commander)]

The guy's hairstyle was very detailed and unique.

[Ben Bradley (Journalist)]

This woman was obviously able to provide a description that generated a composite sketch

[Delia D'Ambra (Counterclock Podcast Host)]

that's coming up in episode two, five Names and a Face. Listen. Right now,

[Kylie Lowe (Dark Down East Podcast Host)]

Every case file, interview and archive tells a piece of the truth. I'm Kylie Lowe, and on my podcast, Dark down east, original reporting is at the heart of every case I cover. I don't just retell crime stories, I investigate them. I'm speaking with families, searching court records and piecing together the facts that have been overlooked and forgotten with time. The result? True crime storytelling that digs as deeply into a case as you do. You can listen to Dark down east wherever you get your podcasts.