The case moved from a Crete Township welfare check to an Indiana arrest and then into Will County court.
ST. JOHN, Ind. — A homicide case that began with a welfare check at an Illinois home quickly became an interstate investigation, ending first with an arrest in northwest Indiana and then with murder proceedings in Will County against a woman accused of killing three members of one family.
Jenna Strouble, 30, of St. John, is charged with nine counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jacob Lambert, 32, Stacy Forde, 54, and Patrick Forde, 55. Authorities say Lambert was the father of Strouble’s two children and that Forde and Patrick Forde were his mother and stepfather. The route of the case has shaped nearly every stage so far: the shootings were alleged to have happened in unincorporated Crete, the arrest happened in Indiana, and the first procedural fights centered on extradition, detention and an initial court appearance in Illinois.
Law enforcement first had to answer a simple question: where was the suspect? Deputies in Will County were called to the 3400 block of East Norway Trail at about 2 a.m. on March 23 after receiving a welfare-check request. Prosecutors later said that request came after Strouble’s sister reported that Strouble had called and said she had shot three people. By the time deputies reached the house, they found two victims inside near the entryway and Lambert in a nearby vehicle. But Strouble was no longer there. She had already driven back to St. John, about 8 miles from Crete Township, according to early reporting from the sheriff’s office.
That distance was short, but it split the response between two states. Officers in St. John went to Strouble’s home, where prosecutors said she came outside and handed them a bag containing a loaded Glock 19 with a suppressor. A vehicle registered to Lambert was found nearby. Prosecutors also said Strouble’s children and her parents were in the home at the time. She was taken into custody in Indiana and initially held in the Lake County jail while Illinois authorities worked to bring her back across the state line. In the first public phase of the case, that jurisdictional handoff mattered as much as the alleged motive, because court movement in Illinois depended on custody being secured first.
Once Strouble appeared in Will County court, prosecutors began to fill in the allegations behind the three murder counts. They said she picked Lambert up late on March 22, drove with him, and eventually stopped on Burnham Road in Sauk Village after finding Plum Creek Nature Preserve closed. There, according to prosecutors, she offered Lambert a back massage, retrieved a hidden gun and shot him while he lay in the passenger seat. After that, they said, she drove to the East Norway Trail house, used Lambert’s keys to try to get in, and shot Patrick Forde when he opened the door. Stacy Forde was then shot after coming downstairs, prosecutors said.
The prosecution has described the case as planned rather than spontaneous. Local reports on the detention hearing said Strouble allegedly told investigators she went to Lambert “with an intention,” and that she wrote a note the night before naming people who could care for her children. Prosecutors also said she bought the gun in December 2025 and purchased the suppressor online for about $589. Crime-lab testing later matched 13 shell casings to the recovered weapon, according to prosecutors’ court account reported by NBC Chicago and FOX 32. Those details are likely to matter in later hearings because they speak to premeditation, the sequence of events, and the physical evidence tying the arrest in Indiana to the killings in Illinois.
Even so, several pieces remain unresolved in public. The sheriff’s office said from the start that the shooting appeared domestic and targeted, but it did not initially give a motive. Prosecutors later described complaints about Lambert’s parenting and about tensions with his family, yet they also said Strouble did not offer a full motive beyond personal grievances and dislike. Final coroner findings were also not immediately complete, with early reports saying toxicology and police materials were still needed. Defense arguments were limited in the first hearings because one proceeding was postponed when Strouble’s attorney was handling another matter.
Illinois courts still must address detention, scheduling and the steady exchange of evidence that comes before trial. The extradition phase that dominated the first days has given way to a standard murder prosecution, but the interstate element remains one of the case’s defining features. The allegations begin in one state, the deaths were discovered in another, and the evidence trail runs through both. As of the latest public reporting, Strouble remained jailed while the Will County case continued.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.