FOX LAKE (STMW) — Seven years after McHenry County teenager Brian Carrick vanished from a neighborhood grocery store, a former co-worker has been charged with murdering the 17-year-old stock boy and then disposing of his body, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
Carrick’s one-time boss, 26-year-old Mario Casciaro, allegedly killed the teen while he worked at Val’s Foods in far northwest suburban Johnsburg, McHenry County authorities announced late Friday.
The charges filed against Casciaro brought a measure of comfort to Carrick’s father, who said he always believed that family members would see murder charges brought in the notorious case.
“I think it was inevitable,” Carrick’s father, William, said of the charges, praising police and prosecutors for never halting their efforts to determine what happened to his son.
“I knew they weren’t going to quit and it was just going to be a matter of time,” Carrick added. “This is the culmination of a lot of real, real hard work.”
Brian Carrick disappeared on Dec. 20, 2002 when he left his Johnsburg home and walked across the street to Val’s Foods.
The high school junior never returned home, but police later found traces of his blood–and signs of a disturbance–inside the store. His body, however, has never been found.
But throwing an unusual twist into the charges filed against Casciaro is the fact that he already has been tried and acquitted of perjury charges stemming from Carrick’s disappearance.
That 2009 acquittal didn’t stop a McHenry County grand jury this week from indicting Casciaro on charges of first-degree murder and concealing a homicidal death. The indictment alleges that Carrick died after being struck in the head while he was at the store, authorities said.
Casciaro was arrested Saturday in Fox Lake.
Casciaro was charged in 2007 with perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury investigating Carrick’s disappearance. A former acquaintance testified at his trial last year that Casciaro had admitted that he and another man had been involved in Carrick’s disappearance. Casciaro, however, denied implicating himself in Carrick’s disappearance and he ultimately was acquitted of the charges by a McHenry County judge.
Authorities wouldn’t say Friday what prompted the indictment, but said they never lost hope of some day filing charges in the teen’s disappearance.
“We’re committed, regardless of the time, to pursue justice and bring closure to the family,’’ said McHenry County State’s Attorney Louis Bianchi, who declined further comment on the case.
Casciaro is jailed on $5 million bond. He is scheduled to appear Saturday in bond court in northwest suburban Woodstock on the charges, which could send him to prison for as long as 65 years.
Carrick’s mother, Therese “Terry” Carrick, died of cancer last November, still grieving over the disappearance of her son–one of her 14 children. But William Carrick said he believes his wife, always a devout Catholic, knows that murder charges finally have been filed in the case.
“She’s watching from the balcony,” William Carrick said of his wife.
Read the original article from WBBM News Radio.
Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services