A Michigan choose on Tuesday set a $2,000,000 bail for Adam Beckerink, the person accused of killing his estranged spouse by throwing her from a Twenty fourth-floor stairwell at his South Loop condominium final 12 months. Beckerink stays jailed in Berrien County, Michigan, serving a 93-day sentence for a home battery case involving the lady.
The Prepare dinner County warrant was issued Monday after Chicago police filed a grievance accusing Beckerink, 47, of killing 36-year-old Caitlin Tracey by throwing her over the east stairwell railing close to his Twenty fourth-floor unit at 1201 South Prairie Avenue on October 25, 2024.
Tracey’s physique was found two days later, on the night of October 27, after a resident discovered a severed foot on a decrease flooring of the stairwell. Police later discovered the remainder of her stays close by. A household consultant described her physique as “pulverized.”
The Prepare dinner County Medical Examiner’s Workplace discovered that Tracey died from accidents in keeping with a fall from peak however dominated the way of dying “undetermined,” leaving open whether or not it was an accident, suicide, or murder. Chicago police detectives spent the next 12 months constructing proof they imagine proves Beckerink is accountable.
Tracey’s household issued a press release on Monday praising the efforts of the police division and Prepare dinner County State’s Lawyer Eileen O’Neill Burke.
“Each the Chicago police division and Ms. O’Neill Burke’s workplace have been tireless of their efforts to acquire justice on behalf of Caitlin,” the household mentioned.
On the time of her dying, Tracey was dwelling in New Buffalo, Michigan, however her household mentioned she had been staying with Beckerink in Chicago. He reportedly advised police she had been lacking for a few month when he filed a lacking individual report on October 26—someday earlier than her stays have been discovered and, based on the grievance, someday after she died. However Investigators allegedly obtained surveillance video displaying the couple collectively simply a few days earlier than her physique was discovered.
Tracey’s dying got here simply two days earlier than a Michigan jury trial was scheduled to start on felony expenses alleging that Beckerink interfered along with her efforts to name 911 and violently resisted police throughout a earlier arrest. Court docket data present that Tracey had sought a number of protecting orders and filed police stories describing escalating abuse and harassment within the months main as much as her dying.
In a single 2023 Prepare dinner County petition, she mentioned Beckerink contacted her “roughly twenty occasions a day” and continuously referred to as her “liar,” “cheater,” “whore,” and “piece of s***.” She additionally documented repeated assaults, together with an August 2023 assault inside the identical Prairie Avenue constructing, the place she mentioned Beckerink “slammed my head towards a cupboard, slapped me, punched me, put my head in a headlock, and dragged me away from the door.”
Different incidents included a September 2023 confrontation on the Ritz-Carlton Chicago, the place Tracey mentioned he entered her resort room whereas she slept and assaulted her, and a July 2023 altercation in Michigan wherein she claimed Beckerink struck her within the head with a pickle jar and poured vodka on her wounds earlier than taking her to a hospital two days later.
After Tracey’s dying, her household and Beckerink fought in courtroom over management of her stays. The household prevailed in November 2024, permitting them to take possession for burial.
Authentic reporting you’ll see nowhere else, paid for by our readers. Click on right here to assist our work.
