NBC 5 Investigates

The board that oversees ERCOT held an urgent meeting Wednesday morning to discuss the winter storm that crippled most of Texas last week. They offered apologies for the devastation the power outages have caused and pledged to gather the facts to help lawmakers determine how to prevent it from ever happening again.

More than two dozen expressway shootings have been reported in Chicago so far this year, and now IDOT is providing funds for the city to fight back. NBC 5 Investigates’ Phil Rogers has the story.

After a revered Oak Park couple was attacked and killed late at night in their home, NBC 5 Investigates spent months reviewing the autopsy reports and the couple’s legal work. A veteran homicide detective said the murder does not look random. Rob Stafford shares the story.

Warning: Details in this story are graphic and may be disturbing to some readers. It was a violent crime unlike any ever seen in Oak Park, a town known more for Frank Lloyd Wright architecture and Ernest Hemingway’s birthplace than brutal murder mysteries. On April 13, 2020, Thomas Johnson, 69, and his wife Leslie Jones, 67, were discovered dead in their…

Karen Philips, the mother of missing U.S. postal employee Kierra Coles, is unveiling new information that detectives initially told her not to disclose. NBC 5 Investigates’ Rob Stafford reports.

Headstones containing the names of American veterans who served during World War 2, Korea and Vietnam were found scattered in a pile at a long-closed rail yard on Chicago’s South Side. NBC 5’s Chris Coffey is searching for more information in the case and has the latest.

On tonight’s NBC 5 Investigates, Stefan Holt introduces us to a man who has made it his mission to save endangered tigers and other big cats who have been bought and kept illegally in the U.S.

NBC 5 Investigates’ Phil Rogers takes a look at the impact the closure of the state of Illinois’ casinos will have on their revenue, and tax revenue for the state as well.

It started as an innocent email inquiry in August for wedding services to CSP Worldwide from a “Jane” living in the United Kingdom. “We’re all going through COVID, and we’re all dealing with life as it is. All of a suddenly I got a request through one of my company contact pages,” said Carey Smolensky, owner of CSP Worldwide in...

It started as an innocent email inquiry in August for wedding services to CSP Worldwide from a “Jane” living in the United Kingdom and quickly turned into a cyber romance scheme with a high tech twist. NBC 5 Investigates’ Rob Stafford is hot on the conman’s trail.

While Illinois officials repeatedly beg people to steer clear of large gatherings, they’ve privately been keeping track of just those kinds of cases, which have caused tens of thousands of coronavirus infections throughout the pandemic, throughout the state. NBC 5 Investigates’ Phil Rogers reports

For the third time, NBC stations around America are tracking how quickly letters are sent to different areas of the country. NBC 5 Investigates’ Phil Rogers has more on what we found out as Election Day approaches.

The call came into DuPage County’s 911 center shortly before 1 pm on Aug. 8. “I’m filing a missing person report,” said the caller Kristine Cefolia, the ex-wife of United Airlines executive Jake Cefolia. “Nobody’s seen him since Thursday and he hasn’t reached out to any family members at all.” On the surface, Jake Cefolia seemed to have it...

The University of Illinois offers students a hybrid learning plan that keeps students on campus during the coronavirus pandemic. NBC 5’s Lauren Petty reports

Lawyers for Kyle Rittenhouse, the accused gunman in Kenosha, WI, say presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden shared a video on social media suggesting Rittenhouse is a white supremacist and plan to file a lawsuit. NBC Investigates’ Phil Rogers reports

Public health experts say one crucial key in lifting stay-at-home orders and re-opening the economy is to identify all coronavirus cases and to trace contacts of each identified case. The practice is called contact tracing, and it is tedious work. “It is a very time-consuming, time-intensive process,” said Palak Panchal, the lead epidemiologist in the surveillance, control and prevention of…

As an Illinois state representative takes Governor J.B. Pritzker to court, challenging the governor’s stay-at-home order, an analysis by NBC 5 Investigates suggests that the representative’s own district is not ready to reopen, according to guidelines set out by the federal government. Rep. John Cabello, of Machesney Park, which is near Rockford, filed suit this week, challenging the constitutionality...

Uptown resident Alicia Hawley says she can’t believe how quick postal thieves got in and out of her condo building. “Three minutes, from start to finish,” said Hawley, the president of her condo association. “One person was carrying U.S. postal bins. The other person had the key. It tells me it was a coordinated effort..that it was planned, and...

Uptown resident Alicia Hawley says she can’t believe how quick postal thieves got in and out of her condo building. The NBC 5 Investigates series continues, Rob Stafford reports.

In the wake of a midday stabbing Monday on Chicago’s 606 pedestrian trial, NBC 5 Investigates along with Telemundo Investiga,analyzed all crime data reported by the Chicago Police Department since 2016 – the first full year that the 606 trail was open. We found that in 2016 police reported 28 total criminal incidents on the trail – to date, an…