Editor’s note: The video in the player above is from an earlier report.
The husband of Caitlin Tracey, who is accused of pushing her down a 24-story stairwell in a South Loop apartment building in 2024, faced additional charges in court Thursday in connection with her death.
Adam Beckerink was 47 charged with first-degree murder in Tracey’s death last month.
During the brief hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building before Cook County Judge Joanne Rosado, Beckerink pleaded not guilty to new charges of concealment of murder, making a false report to 911 and making a false report to a public safety agency, as well as murder.
Beckerink, whose wrists were shackled, wore an orange jumpsuit with short sleeves and showed no emotion. Tracey’s parents were present.
Tracey, 36, was found dead at the bottom of a stairwell in a South Loop apartment building on Oct. 27 after residents of the building found a severed foot in the stairwell. Prosecutors said Beckerink, a Chicago attorney, pushed Tracey off a railing on the 24th floor of their building in the 1200 block of South Prairie Avenue.
Tracey has been in a relationship with Beckerink since 2022. They lived together in the South Loop apartment, but Tracey also had a home in New Buffalo, Michigan.
Tracey obtained a protective order against Beckerink in Cook County in 2023 after multiple domestic battery reports to Chicago police, but later had it dropped after he threatened to sue her for defamation.
Prosecutors said Tracey disclosed to a court-appointed victim advocate that Beckerink had previously threatened to throw her down a flight of stairs.
He served a 93-day sentence last year in Michigan’s Berrien County Jail for domestic violence against Tracey. He was arrested on January 12 by Chicago police officers and the US Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force after being released.
Shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 25, 2024, four residents of the South Loop high-rise reported hearing an “unusually loud noise” that sounded like something striking metal coming from the building’s stairwell, prosecutors said.
The next morning around 3 a.m., CCTV footage showed Beckerink dragging a luggage cart full of coats and bags from the building’s parking garage.
Later that day, Beckerink told the building’s caretaker, whom he had befriended while living there, that Tracey had been missing since 10 p.m. the day before.
Beckerink later filed a missing person’s report with Chicago police, telling officers that Tracey had left their house the night before around 9 or 10 p.m. to go for a run and had not taken her phone or keys with her. Prosecutors say he also told officers he had been in Michigan and had not seen Tracey in more than a month. However, detectives found surveillance video from the building on Oct. 24 that showed the two together, according to a Chicago police report.
Surveillance footage from the apartment does not show Tracey leaving the building around the time Beckerink reported, prosecutors said.
A day after Tracey’s body was found, Beckerink was arrested and charged with filing a false police report. He was later released without charges being filed.
After Tracey’s death, her parents and Beckerink fought over custody of her remains. A Michigan judge ultimately granted custody to Tracey’s parents Cook County Judge later accepted that statement.
Beckerink must appear in court again on March 18.
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