This novel is a partially fictionized account of the murder of Dorothy Polulach, a well off widow who was found shot to death in her southside Chicago home in Februrary of 1981. Mrs Polulach was the widow of George Polulach, a wealthy landowner. Dorothy was his second wife. By his first wife, who he divorced about ten years before the murder, he had one daughter, Anne Wolters who lived in Fort Lauderdale Florida with her husband Wayne and her mother.
It is vital to understand the case that Mrs. Polulach was paranoid about possible robberies and burglaries and so set up a very complicated burglar alarm system in her home. Every door and window contained two or even three burglar alarms, making the home a virtual impregnable castle.
George Polulach committed suicide the year before Dorothy's murder. At his wake, his daughter Anne found out to her chagrin that her father left the bulk of his wealth to his wife, leaving Anne just a pittance. Anne was further angered because she refused to believe that her father committed suicide. She thought that her stepmother Dorothy had something to do with George's death.
Michael Duffin is a retired police officer for the City of Chicago. He spent 33 years on the force, including 23 years as a Violent Crimes detective. During his tenure as a detective, he and his partner detective Thomas Ptak investigated hundreds of 1st Degree murder cases, solving many of them which resulted in the imprisonment of numerous murderers. "The Case of the "Killer Priest" is a fictional account of Mr. Duffin's investigation into the 1981 murder of a widow named Dorothy Polulach.
This book is Mr. Duffin's first novel. He and co-author David Cuomo are in the process of reviewing other actual cases with an eye towards a second co-authored book.
Mr. Cuomo graduated from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 1983, following which he began a twenty one year career as a trial lawyer. In 2005, he began a teaching career, during which he composed several short stories, one of which won the Kay Mandeck Award. In 2013, Elmhurst College named him the Graduate Student of the Decade award. "The Detective's Quota" is Mr. Cuomo's first full-length novel. He is currently working on a novel about an Italian priest murdered by the German Army during the Second World War.
