Go to original article

A man police say orchestrated a deadly home invasion in Genoa in 2005 is in the custody of U.S. Marshals and will soon be brought to DeKalb County to face charges, police said Thursday.

With the arrest of Kirk B. Swaggerty, the Illinois Department of Corrections says its No. 1 most-wanted fugitive has been captured.

“We are very excited,” DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said of Swaggerty’s arrest. “We have been working on this for a long, long time. We knew he was out of the country. The detectives have worked hard.”

Swaggerty, 38, was arrested Saturday. He has since been deported from Mexico to Los Angeles, where he was taken into custody by the Marshals Service, Scott said. Swaggerty has waived extradition and will be in DeKalb County “in the near future,” DeKalb County State’s Attorney Ron Matekaitis said.

Swaggerty was indicted in November 2008 on charges of first-degree murder, home invasion and possession of a weapon by a felon, according to court documents. If convicted of the murder charge, Swaggerty faces up to 60 years in prison. An arrest warrant had been issued in 2005 on a murder charge in the same case, court documents show.

Swaggerty was taken into custody Saturday in La Penita, Nayarit, in Mexico, according to the U.S. Marshals Office. He had been using the name Adan Castellanos-Smith, according to the Marshals office. A joint investigation by the Marshals Service, the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office and the Mexican Federal authorities led to the arrest.

Genoa police declined to comment Thursday.

The charges against Swaggerty stem from a Feb. 4, 2005, home invasion in Genoa at the residence of Michael Mason and Amy Crosby.

Jamie Villarreal, 32, of the 100 block of South Liberty Street in Elgin, and Jason Middlekauff, 37, of the 300 block of Magnolia Court in Schaumburg, told police that they had gone to Mason’s home in the 700 block of John Court in Genoa at the direction of Swaggerty to steal large amounts of marijuana, according to court documents.

Villarreal waited in a van outside the residence while Middlekauff and a fourth man, Michael Kappa, went into the residence around 10 p.m., according to court documents.

Mason told police that he and Crosby were in their family room watching TV when they heard a knock on the door. Mason noticed a van in the driveway and asked who was at the door. A male voice said he was a neighbor and said someone was “trying to mess with” Mason’s car.

Mason did not recognize the voice and grabbed a “decorative sword” that was in the family room because he was scared. The door was then kicked in, and a man entered the residence and said, “Police.” Mason dropped the sword and was pushed to the floor by the man, who then pointed a gun at Mason’s face and told him he was going to kill him, according to court documents. Mason later identified the man as Middlekauff.

Another man entered the house and ran after Crosby, who had run upstairs with her 5-year-old son. She later identified that man as Kappa. When Middlekauff seemed distracted, Mason reached for the gun, according to the complaint. Mason grabbed the gun and shot Middlekauff. Kappa, who heard Middlekauff’s call for help and came downstairs, picked up the sword and came at Mason, who shot Kappa, according to court documents.

Middlekauff ran out of the house and into the van. The van was driven to the McDonald’s at Routes 72 and 23 in Genoa, where someone helped Middlekauff call 911 around 10:15 p.m.

Police had been called a few minutes before about the shooting and break-in at the house on John Court. When police arrived, they found Kappa suffering a gunshot wound. He later died.

Though he declined to specify what role Swaggerty played in the home invasion attempt, Matekaitis said that state law allows a person to be charged with murder if investigators believe that the individual is responsible for the crime that led to the killing.

“Even if [the deceased] is one of the suspects, all the accomplices for that offense can be charged with felony murder,” he said, stressing that he was speaking hypothetically.  “... It’s very fact-specific. You don’t have to be in the house to be charged.”

Middlekauff is serving a 201⁄2-year prison sentence for first-degree murder; he pleaded guilty to the charge in January 2007.

Villarreal, who pleaded to a lesser charge in 2006 after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors in their cases against Middlekauff and Swaggerty, is serving a 24-year prison sentence for residential burglary.

Mason was later charged with felony drug possession; he was sentenced to four years in jail and was taken to Statesville Correctional Center in January 2007, according to records from the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was paroled in July 2008, according to the department’s Web site.