A man who shot to death a Chicago-area family last year thought he was acting on the orders of a Mexican drug cartel, investigators say. But the multiple cartel members Nathaniel Huey Jr. thought he had been communicating with were all online personas created by his girlfriend, Ermalinda Palomo. Police believe Palomo began manipulating Nathaniel Huey Jr. after learning about his affair with a co-worker, Zoraida Bartolomei, NBC News reports. Police say she launched the plot about a year before Bartolomei, her husband, their two young sons, and the family's three dogs were killed in their Romeoville home.
Police say Huey killed the family after Palomo, posing as a cartel member, convinced him "that a 'mole' was planning to attack him," making him "paranoid" about the mole's identity, Romeoville Police Detective Daniel Zakula wrote in his report. Days before the Sept. 16 murders, Huey Jr. was told that Zoraida Bartolomei was the mole. Huey "fully believed the information being fed to him by Ermalinda, but did not know Ermalinda was the person he was communicating with," Zakula wrote. Police say Palomo drove Huey to the home and spoke to him on a two-way radio during the murders. Earlier, posing as a cartel member called "Turtle" online, she had helped him plan the killings.
The couple left town after police spoke to them about the murders. Police say that after a police pursuit led to a fiery crash in Oklahoma, Huey shot Palomo before killing himself. She died in a hospital hours later. ABC7 police affairs consultant Bill Kushner says what appears to have been an attempt to end Huey's infidelity became the most convoluted murder case he's ever seen. "She really wove quite a web of deception," he says. Zakula wrote that he had concluded "Nathaniel and Ermalinda are solely responsible for the murders. Both offenders are now deceased. Case closed." NBC Chicago reports that police believe Huey never discovered that Palomo was behind the accounts he had communicated with. (More murder stories.)
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