>> yeah, i guess not. and clearly the investigation not over yet. pamela brown, thanks so much. cannot wait to see this special. that does it for us. a lot going on tonight. thank you so much for watching.

one imagined. >> what wa

gliniewicz. >> they couldn't get ahold of joe about ten minutes later i found out he had died.

so that was crushing blow to me. >> the lieutenant's pal fox lake mayor meets another friend at the police station. together they tell gliniewicz's wife what happened. >> the way it went out of her mouth will stay with me forever. she collapsed on the floor. she started becoming physically ill. >> the horrifying news spreads quickly in this village of less than 11,000 and people here are stunned. >> joe was the cop's cop. this is the person that would never be gunned down. there was no way that this could have happened. >> couldn't happen because the lieutenant had more than 30 years with the police department and more than 25 with the army. he was fit and tough earning him the nickname g.i. joe. >> he always wore fatigues and

combat boots and he had his military hat on. when he went in a restaurant, everybody walked up and said hi. he was probably the town's biggest celebrity. >> and a mentor to young people. >> that's what you have to do when you have people running at you. >> who he trained for police tactics and s.w.a.t. competit n competitions. >> he was just this person that no matter what was going on you know you could be honest with him because he never judged you. he was like a father. he was always there and it was really nice. i know i wasn't the only one. i know everyone told him everything. >> he was this larger than life cartoon character named g.i. joe who would take the youth under his wing of fox lake and teach them how to be like him in the future and now that person was taken from them.

>> on the morning of september 1t 1, the village hero, lay dead near the old concrete plant and his colleagues are massing quickly to track down three suspects they believe must be near by. ahead, g.i. joe remembered. >> we all knew joe was a hero. >> and revealed. >> if i knew about that personnel file and was a parent, i wouldn't put my child in the explorer program under him. whatcha doin?

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starts with an alfredo sauce withmade-from-scratch.oli because the most comforting thing about comfort food, is who you're sharing it with. marie callender's. in quiet little fox lake, ill noi a local hero is dead and officers are desperately

searching for suspects. things like this don't happen around here. >> i don't want to say it's like mayberry, but it's very close knit. >> residents and tourists are urged to stay inside as a massive heavily armed search for suspects gets under way. police set up what they call a kill zone, two square miles centered around where shots have just been fired. it will be saeld off by hundreds of officers speeding towards the small village. inside the zone, hundreds more, above five helicopters and a fixed wing plane all searching for the men they believe shot

lieutenant be gliniewicz. almost immediately frightened citizens call in multiple sightings. inside the search zone it's hot as hell and dozens of the police officers are passing out. >> it's a bog or a swappy area. the humidity that day was very intense. the temperature was in the '80s. >> that night a special chopper searches the zone. >> they put helicopters up to a thermal seeking device to make sure there was nobody in that area. >> nobody is there and after more than 14 hours, the inch by inch search of two square miles is done. it looks like the suspects have gotten away. in four days thousands of

tourists will flood this lake village for a weekend on the water and police are still looking for three killers who could be anywhere. >> the boston bombers and everything that happened, they found them under boat covers. look at the boat covers out here. >> despite the fear and uncertainty, about 1,200 people turn out for a kwiekly organized vijle the day after the shooting to remember the hero they call g.i. joe. >> when you cut him, he bled blue. >> among the mourners, explorer morgan gill witch. >> i was so stunned this was happening and this was real and this was like my mentor. it was like losing a family member. i -- it sucked. >> lieutenant gliniewicz's widow

is also there with their four sons. >> joe was my best friend and my world, my hero. the love of my life for the last 26 and a half years. he was the most wonderful caring and loving father to our boys and he will truly be missed by all of us. >> i could not bear the sight of her crying. she is such a strong woman and i have never seen her like that before and i didn't want to. >> later that very night about five miles south of fox lake a call that sounds like the big break. >> i was outside looking at my car with a flashlight two guys approached me and asked me if i was going to wisconsin and asked me if they could get a ride. >> the caller says she hops into her car to call 911 while two

men in hooddies, one black and one white, run behind a garden center. >> you're feeling hopeful at this point that this could be something. >> initially it sounded like it was something. >> it didn't. >> the canines weren't able to track anything. it was learned through further investigation that she had fabricated the entire account. >> then another promising lead, investigators believe they may have the three suspects gliniewicz said he was chasing on tape. >> they were all together on the video? >> it was all together and it was a great job that the fbi did and they just put together the sequential video. >> the men are identified within eight hours and what seems like another great lead fizles into nothing. >> it couldn't have been a

stronger alibi. >> that alibi, breakfast. >> we have them on a video atm withdraw to get money to go to breakfast. we did a photo line up with the waitress. we have a credit card receipt. >> again, another huge disappointment for you? >> yeah, but you keep going. >> keep going, searching for a killer trying to solve the mystery of what happened to lieutenant joe gliniewicz. ahead. >> his fatal gunshot wound was two inches under the top of his vest. how did that happen? making great burgers, or building the best houses in town. or becoming the next highly-unlikely dotcom superstar. and us, we'll be right there with you, helping with the questions you need answered to get your brand new business started. we're legalzoom and we've already partnered

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labor day 2015 turns into memorial day in fox lake illinois as thousands turn out to a big send off, their beloved g.i. joe. >> the way that joe felt about this town and they felt about joe came out during that funeral because it was a funeral that was larger than life.

it was massive. >> when we were growing up, we all kne knew joe was a hero, buw the nation knows he's a hero. >> 1,000 police cars join the procession, it stretches five miles and lasts several hours and is lined with grieving spectat spectator. >> it was a tremendous outpouring from the community. >> as lieutenant gliniewicz is being laid to rest, investigators are working over time to locate who killed him, but what they find makes things more, not less, confusing. for instance, they discover gliniewicz's service recover two and a half feet from his head between two trees. why wouldn't the killer take the gun with him or throw it in the swap? then there's the scattered gear

at the site which makes investigators believe there may have been a struggle, but why doesn't the lieutenant aes body look like it's about in a fight. >> what did you notice about the body? >> the officer's clothes were in roll call order meaning that his shirt was tucked in proply and his pants were clean except for a little mud on his knees. his bulletproof vest was in prop position. >> something else that is unusual is how he was shot. >> his fatal gunshot wound was between the first and second rib, but it was two inches under the top of his vest which made one wonder how did that happen. >> at the crime scene investigators are trying to figure out how someone could have gotten close enough to shoot the tough g.i. joe upds neither his vest. >> we did every possible scenario that you can imagine out here to try to explain what

happened. >> back at headquarters they're digging their his personnel file looking for information. there, they make some astounding discoveries. >> there was a whole other joe gliniewicz that nobody knew. >> it was 254 pages thick with shocking information. >> if i knew about that personnel file and i was a parent, i wouldn't put my child in the explorer program under him. >> in may of 1988 fox lake police sergeant stated he was called by a sheriff's depty who found officer gliniewicz passed out in his truck on the side of the road with the engine running full throttle with his foot on the gas. the sergeant wrote he was summoned because the depty couldn't wake gen and this was not the first time that something like this has happened.

in 2003 a fox lake radio dispatcher claimed gliniewicz joked about putting bullets in my chest. three weeks later she claimed he brought a gun into the dispatch room. i don't appreciate someone cogging a gun or whatever he was doing making clicking sounds with it especially when that someone just recently joked about putting bullets in my chest. >> in 2009 some officers sent the former mayor a letter saying they had a list of grievances against gliniewicz. >> among the accusations various members of the department had been approached by bouncers of different establishments and advised that gliniewicz had been escorted from the establishment. the letter goes on to claim that gliniewicz did not pay a bar tab in excess of $300, that he took his family on vacation to

wisconsin in his squad car and that on several occasions he inappropriately touched women, grab their breasts, hardly qualities that describe a hero. >> i've seen the personnel file, but if you show that to people, if you bring that out and show that to people, i don't think there would be too many people that would believe some of the stuff that was in there. >> but what may be most disturbing in the file is a reference to this lawsuit against the fox lake police department. it was filed in 2003 by a former female officer who claimed lieutenant gliniewicz pressured her to perform oral sex on him five times in 2007 saying the favors were encouraged or required to protect her job. gliniewicz was suspended 30 days, the lawsuit was eventually dismissed. >> it's unusual for somebody to be a logistic and have

supervisory authority with a personnel file looking like his. >> in a document obtained by cnn one of the officers involved in the gliniewicz describes the lieutenant as a golden child of fox lake pd who must have had some dirt on someone to be able to stay with the police department. current fox lake mayor says he didn't know what was in his friend's file. >> i don't have access to our employee's files. the only time i look at a file is if there's a discipline problem. the two years i was trustee and the two and a half years i was mayor, we never had a complaint on him. >> the personnel file, while shocking, doesn't immediately change the way local authorities are looking at the gliniewicz case. >> it didn't get you thinking differently in terms of how he was killed? >> no, other than coming up with another theory. if he had those types of issues in particular with women or coworkers, then perhaps there

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around the same time investigators are learning about a seamy side of lieutenant joe gliniewicz, local coroner makes a statement about the town hero that begins to tarnish his public image. i can't rule out a suicide. i can't rule out an accident and i can't rule in a homicide. the doctor tells a local television station in chicago. >> why did you say that publicly? >> because i had no evidence to rule in homicide, suicide or accident so i said everything's open until the crime task force completes its work. >> the suggestion that the shooting is anything other than murder sends lieutenant gliniewicz's family reeling.

the lieutenant's second oldest son who followed his dad into the army adamantly dismisses the idea of suicide. >> he has applied for several different chief's positions at the police department and someone who wants to take their life, they don't plan a future. >> it also doesn't make sense to the man in charge of the investigation. >> who would self inflekt one wound and go self inflikt another wound. >> then investigators learn of a discovery made by the fbi on gliniewicz's personnal cell phone. >> when did you discover that he had erased thousands of texts? >> we sent the phone out to quantico, virginia. i think it was into late october

when we finally got those messages back and it was 6,500 pages. >> 6,500 pages of recovered messages and the information found there reveals multiple stunning misdeeds. they say they learn lieutenant gliniewicz orchestrated a bogus marriage for his son. >> those messages were very specific that this is ha marriage facilitated by gliniewicz. it was a sham marriage. and it was for financial reasons. >> the army gives married men larger stipends. the couple is now divorced. but the messages that interest investigators the most are the ones that suggest fox lake's hero law enforcement officer may have tried to arrange a hit on

the new village administrator, a women named an marren. >> when you saw the text, what was your reaction to that? >> holy krap. >> he's talking about a facebook message from early april 2015. in it gliniewicz writes to a woman being forced to retire by new village administrator. work life has been a living held the lost two months. close to entertaining a meeting to a mutual friend of ours. investigators claim white is code for a high ranking gang member. when they say they interviewed the woman he was messaging, she said he wanted the woman to ask the gang member to make a hit. >> we actually located the person that we believed there was an attempt to recruit to do

the hit. >> what did that person tell you all? >> that he was familiar with the area, that he knew who gliniewicz was, but we interviewed him in his attorney's office and he denied any knowledge of any hits or anything like that. >> authorities say there is no additional evidence he pursued a hit on the administrator. the question is why might a 32 year law enforcement veteran want somebody killed? part of the answer my be found in the explorer club house. there are boxes and boxes of military surplus gear, rye yot helmets and gas masks. >> probably about 30 different radio holders. >> investigators say it was acquired by gliniewicz from an army surplus program meant to better equip police officers, not young people. >> the village administrator came down and saw all these

items and she was shocked by what she found. >> so she confronts lieutenant gliniewicz. >> i asked him if he had an inventory of everything that was in that building and he said yes, ma'am. i said can you get it to me by 2:00 today and he said yes, ma'am and that was the end of the conversation. >> that's monday, august 31, the day before gliniewicz's death, the same day he sends this text to his chief. she has now demanded a complete inventory of explorer central and a financial report. fml. fml is text slang for f my life. ann is the first administrator with a keen eye on the budget and it's not working for lieutenant gliniewicz. the lieutenant also exchanges messages that day with his friend, the mayor of fox lake. >> as the night went on, he said

he only had a third of the inventory done, he was going to get his rear end chewed out the next day for not being done with the inventory. i kept telling him, count to ten, breathe, relax. >> all this anxiety, the comp police stati have empolice station of a hits. there must be more. there is. inside those 6,500 pages of messages are texts that suggest the highly admired law enforcement officers had been stealing from explorer bank accounts for about seven years. in june he types to a person identified by investigators as individual number one, used the explorer account for the flight, $624.70. cnn has learned individual number one is his wife.

a few days later he types to a person identified by investigators as individual number two. you are borrowing from that other account when you get back you'll have to start dumping money into that account or you will be visiting me in jail. the 1,600 and the $700.77 all came from there. cnn has learned individual number two is his son. according to family attorneys, lieutenant gliniewicz had been depositing his own money into the explorer post bank account. up next, a shift, a massive shift. >> so just over a month after he died, that's when you were starting to think this may be something else. >> something different, yeah.

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two months ago fox lake, illinois was stunned hunting desperately for three men they believed had called their hometown hero. now, november 4th, the authorities are ready to tell

the world the final results of their investigation. it's a bomb shell. >> this extensive investigation has concluded with an overwhelming amount of evidence that gliniewicz's death was a carefully staged suicide. >> bomb shells involving the death of lieutenant joe gliniewicz. >> everyone in that room was completely stunned. >> the room shock reigns. >> you still insisted for two months that it was a homicide investigation first. >> our intention was never to mislead the public. we completely believed from day one that this was a homicide. >> i've got to tell you, i was hearing from law enforcement folks this looks like suicide. >> we knew there were going to be a lot of questions about this and no matter how long it takes we want to get it right.

>> in and around fox lake the news def states the lieutenant's friends and supporters. >> i didn't want to believe it at all. i didn't want to accept the fact. i didn't want to hear about it. i didn't want to listen to anyone say it. i didn't want to hear it. you don't know how to feel. you feel so betrayed and you -- you don't understand it. >> after nine weeks of investigation, authorities now believe they know what really happened on that first day in september. g.i. joe was not who they thought and his death was no accident. >> the first shot takes place here. the crime lab estimates it was anywhere from, i believe, three to six inches out. the initial impact is absorbed by the telephone. >> lieutenant gliniewicz's work

phone, the one he is wearing above his right hip. >> it goes through the telephone and is absorbed through the vest. >> not fatal, but painful. >> it would be similar to that of a sledgehammer hitting you in the side. >> daysed, but not badly hurt. police believe gliniewicz then does the unthink able. >> you're taking your hand and you're shooting downwards into the vest. >> to the commander, two shots originally suggested homicide. >> who would shot themselves twice. we found out his high tolerance for pain. one of the interviews we had with his wife, she indicated when he was in pain, he would be in a different place. >> that explains how the lieutenant was able to kill himself, but there are still some ends that need to be tied up. the gun is found two and a half

feet from his head, placed between two trees. if gliniewicz shot himself, how did the gun get there? >> the fatal shot did not hit the heart. it hit the pull mon naer artery. he could have lived up to two minutes and that was a key piece of information. >> he shot himself standing in a downward angle under his vest, dropped the gun and still had enough to walk a couple of feet and fall down face first. >> and what about the lieutenant's gear? it seemed to be tossed everywhere, indicating a struggle. >> this is what he did. he trained explorers. they have these competitions where they stage crime scenes. >> lieutenant gliniewicz had staged scenes right here before. >> the concrete plant is where we do the majority of our sniper training.

he knew it like the back of his hand. >> what do you make of the fact that he bought two packs of cigarettes that morning before he went to the concrete plant? >> if you're going to stage something, you want to give the perception of everything is business as usual. >> investigators now know how he did it, but why? the answers they say are in the texts he tried to delete, texts that suggest he was lying, stealing and feared getting caught. >> he used this explorer account as his personnel account. a lot of what these monies were spent on were very unusual, health clubs, starbucks, adult web sites. >> in other words, not expenses for a group of teens? >> no, not pizza parties. >> in the end, investigators say he stole thousands from the people who trusted him the most,

his beloved explorers. >> i would have done anything that i possibly could have to help him. i think a lot of people would have helped him too, if he would have asked for had ep. i think he was very prideful and i think that's what led up to making his decision. he didn't want to ask for help. >> the police officer's thought process, his person sonna and reputation out there in the community is more valuable than anything so he's trapped and he comes up with the scenario if i go out as a hero and even if they zo discover all of this in the end, the hero is going to out weigh the zero. >> ahead, did gliniewicz act alone or did he have help? >> our investigation reveals criminal activity on the part of at least two other individuals.

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behind a gate, down a gravel road, a blue cross now marks the spot near where lieutenant g.i.

joe gliniewicz died. once shrouded in mystery, what happened here has come to light. do you have any doubt whatsoever about the suicide determination? >> no, this is a suicide. >> you're 100% certain it was suicide? >> i'm 100% certain. >> but the end of the death investigation isn't the end of the story. >> our investigation strongly indicates criminal activity on the part of at least two other individuals. >> no arrests have been made, but investigators are looking at joe gliniewicz's wife. >> the accounts of his wife have been froze enby the lake county state's office so one could piece together that she would be under investigation. >> the woman who fell with grief the day her husband died learned her accounts were frozen when

she went to gas up her car in november and her card was denied. in a press release her attorneys say she respectfully requests that everyone refrain from rushing to or misplacing judgment. she has faith that the truth will come out in time, and if necessary in court. the judge in the case has requested that both sides not comment further. nearly 40,000 has been released to her since then, but a freeze has been in ez place. there's a hearing next month to see if it will be permanently lifted. when asked about the case by cnn her attorneys would not comment. and what about the boxes and boxes of military surplus items in the explorer post basement? >> are there items that are missing? we don't have any proof that he told any items, but if there are items that aren't there that should be there, it raises that question, where did they go?

>> fox lake is in the process of trying to figure out what the lieutenant did with all the surplus items he acquired. new leadership has been installed in the fox lake police department and town officials have told cnn they are reviewing all current policies of both the police and the village. as for the explorer post gliniewicz loved, the one from which he allegedly embezzled, it has been disbanded. >> with it being under investigation, we just felt it was best to go on until we can restructure, the investigations are done and we'll start with a clean slate. >> we have to turn in everything that says fox lake police and or explorer post on it. it's difficult. >> the young people who g.i. joe gliniewicz seemed to care about

so much are perhaps his biggest victims. >> it's the part of me that you know that doesn't like him anymore. that's the part of me that makes it very difficult to miss him and for him to do this and to leave us in the position that we've been in, it's difficult, very difficult. >> despite all that, her opinion of the man called g.i. joe hasn't changed. >> he will forever be my hero. he wasn't superman, but pretty damn close. >> to investigators, he's an officer who committed the ultimate betrayal. he dishonored his badge.

>> it was a slap in the face to all of us. the people who stood up and came to the memorials and came to the police department and dropped off cards, flowers, added to the memorial, you had police officers that traveled from across this country to attend his funeral, people from the community that traveled across this country to attend his funeral, and it was all for a lie. >> he dishonored what we all swore an oath to uphold. he betrayed not only our profession, but his entire community. it was the first time i could actually tell you in my entire career that i felt ashamed to be a police officer. this one -- this one will haunt me for at least the rest of my career and probably beyond.

this is cnn newsroom liver from los angeles. >> ahead this night debate night turned fight night. donald trump says he'll skip his own debate to help veterans. >> several people are now in custody following a shoot out with police. >> the biggest on record but warnings apple's best days might just be over. >> hello. welcome. >> great to have you with us. this is newest room