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Two local residents named in Florida murder warrantBy FETE REYNOLDSTwo south suburban residents are among six men named in a murder* conspiracy warrant issued in Florida earlier this weekWanted in connection with the abduction and the plot to kill a Florida agriculture inspector is former Chicago police officer James D. McEnroe, 37, of 6240 West 157th place, Oak Forest. McEnroe is the past president of the Meadowridge Homeowners association.Florida officials say the agriculture inspector was abducted at gunpoint and left handcuffed in a rural area of the northern Florida panhandle after stopping a truck load of marijuana bound for Chicago.ALSO NAMED in the warrant emanating from the Third Judicial Circuit in the northern Florida panhandle is Robert Dale Domberg Jr., 35, of Palos Heights. Domberg owns Four Seasons Auto Parts of Chicago.According to authorities, Domberg was convicted last week in Florida of cocaine trafficking and is in custody in Flordia at this time Others named in the warrant are: Joseph Sallas, 49, of 13347 Commercial avenue in the Hege-wisch section of Chicago; Samuel L. McBride, 40, of 754 East 104th street.Chicago; Harry F Brooks Sr., 56, formerly of Chicago now in custody in Ft. Lauderdale and Edward M. McCabe, 37, another former Chicago police officer.McBride and Sallas are in custody in Chicago following their surrender to Chicago police Area Five violent crimes unit McBride turned himself into police on Monday after learning of the charges pending againt him Sallas followed suit TuesdayPOLICE HINTED thfct a third man was scheduled to turn himself in yesterday, but following department policy, detectives refused to identify the suspect. Only McEnroe and McCabe still remain free.Florida authorities are calling the complicated case one of “far ranging proportions involving a “major Florida-to-Chicago drug smuggling ring.“Considering it involves Illinois and Florida, persons who have been identified as former Chicago policemen, violence and threats of violence directed at law enforcement agents, I would call it a case of major and far reaching proportions.” said Jerry Blair, state’s attorney for the Third Judicial circuit in Lake City, Fla.According to Blair, the inspector.Leonard Pease, stopped the shipment of 400 pounds of marijuana in March, 1979 He was then abducted and left handcuffed in a remote, wooded area by Harry Brooks Jr., the son of one of the men named in the conspiracy warrant. Harry Brooks Jr, 39, of Walker-ton, Ind., is a former Chicag^ police officer.BLAIR SAID after Brooks and his brother, William, abducted Pease they stashed the drug-loaded truck in a wooded area near Brunswick, Ga.. and returned to Chicago on a flight out of Atlanta They later returned to Georgia and drove the shipment of marijuana back to ChicagoBrooks Jr. is currently serving a 38-year prison sentence for his part in the abduction His brother, William A. Brooks, 29, of Midlothian, also charged in the kidnapping, received a reduced sentence after he testified for the state against his brother According to Blair, William A. Brooks received a 10-year prison sentence but is currently out on parole.“Our warrants deal soley with the abduction of Inspector Pease and the subsequent plot hatched in Chicago to have him killed,” Blair said Wednesday. However, he did acknowledge there is evidence suggesting a connection between the Pease kidnapping and the murder in April, 1979, of another Florida state agriculture inspector, Austin Gay.Blair indicated that the “wrong man idea getting “lots of notoriety” in the Gay case is only a working theory” at this time. He admitted there is a possibility that whoever shot the 61-year-old Gay and dumped his body on a deserted dirt road approximately 30 miles from the Georgia border might have mistakenly took Gay to be Pease who could identify the Brooks brothers as his abductorsIn a phone conversation Tuesday with a woman who identified herself as McEnroe's wife, the woman said her husband was out of town and not available for comment She did, however, acknowledge that her husband is a former Chicago police officer but hasn’t been on the force “for several years.’’ She also said that her husband had nothing to do with any of the reports appearing in the Chicago newspapersChicago police news affairs office confirmed late Wednesday morning that the James D McEnroe named in the Flordia warrant did, in fact, resign from the police department in June, 1980, and that records show an Oak Forest address
Newspaper Details
Midlothian Star Herald
Midlothian, Illinois, US
Thu, Feb 17, 1983
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Leonard P.
USA 26 Sep 2023
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