Lacey Gaines had not always made the best decisions as a teenager. She had been through a series of rocky relationships, one of which resulted in pregnancy. As she turned twenty-years-old on December 1, 2009, however, she appeared to be getting her life in order. She had moved into an apartment and was dating a man who treated her well.

Lacey was growing up and her twenties promised to be better than her often troubled teenage years . . .  if she had only been able to live them.

Six days after turning twenty-years-old, Lacey’s boyfriend, Juan Valadez, found her blood-soaked body lying on the floor of their Justice, Illinois, apartment, twenty miles southwest of Chicago. Lacey had been repeatedly stabbed and strangled to death.

Fifteen years after Lacey Gaines’s brutal murder, there is still no justice in Justice.

Lacey Gaines

 

Lacey had recently graduated from high school and was working full time as a waitress at the Kingsbury Waffle House in Flossmoor, twenty miles south of Justice. She had a nearly two-year-old son, Conor, with her former boyfriend, Daniel Sanchez.

Lacey’s parents, Jeff and Gilda, were babysitting Conor at the time of Lacey’s murder.

Lacey and Conor

After a stormy three years, Lacey had recently ended her relationship with Daniel. In addition to being verbally abusive, he is believed to have physically abused her, as co-workers said Lacey often came to work bruised.

After Lacey moved into an apartment with her new boyfriend, Juan Valadez, Daniel is alleged to have harassed her and possibly to have texted her death threats.

                          Daniel Sanchez                  Lacey and Juan Valdez

Along with a friend, Juan found Lacey murdered in their apartment at approximately 7:00 p.m. on the evening of December 7, 2009. An autopsy determined she had been strangled with an electrical cord; the fatal wound was a four-inch gash to the left side of her throat. A kitchen knife with a ten-inch blade found in the apartment was confirmed as the murder weapon.

Lacey had not been sexually assaulted and showed no defensive wounds, meaning her killer had likely taken her by surprise, overpowered her and rendered her unconscious.

Stabbed To Death

The Sunset Lake Apartment Complex where Lacey lived was in a drug-infested neighborhood where several maintenance workers had recently been caught peeping into women’s bedrooms. Police, however, do not believe her murder was drug-related and have cleared all of the maintenance men of involvement.

Robbery was ruled out as a motive as nothing was missing from the apartment.

 

Who Killed Lacey?

Because there was no sign of forced entry into the apartment, investigators are certain Lacey was killed by someone she knew and felt comfortable letting into her home.

Daniel Sanchez was initially the prime suspect in the murder of his former girlfriend. After hours of interviews, however, police say they are confident he did not commit the murder. Juan Valdez and all of Lacey’s family members were also cleared of any involvement.

Former and Current Boyfriends Cleared

Lacey Gaines was murdered on December 7, 2009. She was stabbed to death between 3:30 and 7:00 p.m. by a person who was probably right-handed. Police say a person Lacey knew is a suspect in her murder, but the District Attorney says there is not enough evidence to prosecute.

If you have any information on the murder of Lacey Gaines, please contact the Justice, Illinois, Police Department at 708-458-2192 or the Cook County Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-535-7867. Crime Stoppers are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the identification of her killer.

No Justice in Justice

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/48417738/lacey-claire-gaines

 

SOURCES:
• America’s Most Wanted
• Chicago Tribune