State panel unanimously denies parole for convicted killer Patricia Columbo

“Please don’t ever release her. She doesn’t deserve to be in society.”

Mark Tygrett made that plea Thursday to Illinois Prisoner Review Board members weighing parole for his cousin, Patricia Columbo, who was convicted of killing her parents and younger brother nearly 50 years ago in their Elk Grove Village home.

Board members agreed, unanimously denying the 69-year-old’s bid for release.

Columbo was sentenced to 200 to 300 years in prison for the May 4, 1976, murders of her father Frank Columbo, 52, mother Mary, 50, and 13-year-old brother, Michael. Her co-defendant and boyfriend, Frank DeLuca, was sentenced to 300 years and died behind bars in 2023 at age 84.

Lead investigator and former Elk Grove deputy police chief Raymond J. Rose testified in opposition to Columbo’s release Thursday, as he’s done at every one of her parole hearings since 1984. Tygrett and a representative from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office also opposed Columbo’s release.

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