Court filings say the suspect bought a handgun months earlier and later told deputies she had purchased it for the killings.
JOLIET, Ill. — Prosecutors in Will County say a 30-year-old Indiana woman carried out a planned triple killing that began inside a parked car and ended at a family home in Crete Township, leaving three people dead and a detention fight ahead next week.
Jenna Strouble is charged with nine counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Jacob Lambert, the father of her children, and his mother and stepfather, Stacy and Patrick Forde. The prosecution’s account, laid out in court and in detention filings, portrays a case built around preparation, admissions to police and a weapon officers say matched the one used in the shootings. The hearing calendar has now become the next major step, with a judge expected to decide whether Strouble stays jailed before trial.
Authorities said the deaths were discovered after a call for help in the early hours of March 23. Deputies responding to the 3400 block of East Norway Trail in Crete Township found Lambert dead in a vehicle outside the home and found Stacy and Patrick Forde inside near the front door area. The sheriff’s office has said all three victims lived at the property. The agency described the violence as a targeted incident from the beginning. Investigators soon focused on Strouble, who had an on-and-off relationship with Lambert and shared two children with him. Police said she fled to her home in nearby St. John, Indiana, after the shootings, and officers there arrested her with help from local and county law enforcement.
What prosecutors later described in court added a detailed timeline. They said Strouble invited Lambert to hang out on the night of March 22 and drove him around before stopping in Sauk Village after a planned destination was closed. There, according to court records, she told Lambert she would use a massage gun and give him a back massage. Lambert reclined the passenger seat and lay on his stomach. Prosecutors said Strouble then straddled him and massaged him for about 20 minutes. During that time, they said, she retrieved a Glock 19 hidden under the seat. Prosecutors told the court she held the weapon at the back of Lambert’s head for several minutes, nearly put it down at one point, then fired. They said she then drove to his parents’ home and opened fire when Patrick Forde answered the door.
The filings became even more specific about the physical evidence and the state’s theory of planning. Prosecutors said Strouble later handed officers a loaded Glock 19 fitted with a suppressor when they arrived at her home. They said she told investigators she bought the firearm in Crown Point, Indiana, in December 2025 and bought the suppressor online. Prosecutors also said she wrote a note before the killings asking others to care for her children and gave names of people she trusted. In one of the most serious allegations, prosecutors said she told police she bought the firearm solely for this plan. They also said she used the suppressor because she did not want to make noise, even though she did not think she would get away with the crime. That allegation, if upheld in court, would support the state’s argument that the shootings were deliberate and not spontaneous.
At the same time, prosecutors have acknowledged that motive remains less settled than the timeline. In court, they said Strouble did not give much of a motive beyond saying she did not like the way Lambert spoke to the children and thought his parents were overbearing. Other filings said she vaguely claimed she did not believe her children were safe with Lambert or with her own parents. Prosecutors have also said she told investigators that worries about custody were at least part of why Lambert’s parents were targeted. Reporting from multiple local outlets said prosecutors presented other troubling details, including prior suicidal thoughts and an earlier episode in which investigators learned she had considered violent acts but had not acted on them. Those claims may become part of future arguments over detention, mental health history and the reliability of her statements.
For now, the legal fight is focused on custody and scheduling rather than guilt or innocence. Strouble first appeared in court Monday without an attorney and asked for a new date so counsel could attend. She returned Tuesday, but her lawyer was still unavailable because of another homicide trial, according to courtroom reporting. Patch reported that Strouble did not object to remaining in custody until the matter could be heard. Shaw Local later reported that a detention hearing was scheduled for Monday, April 6. Prosecutors are seeking to keep her jailed under Illinois law that allows pretrial detention in certain serious felony cases if the state shows no release conditions can protect the public or specific people at risk.
The prosecution has already named those specific risks. In detention papers, Assistant State’s Attorney Tricia McKenna argued Strouble poses a danger to the community and a specific danger to her own parents. That request goes beyond the triple-murder allegations and signals the state intends to use her reported statements and past behavior to argue that supervision or release conditions would not be enough. Defense arguments have not yet been fully aired in court because counsel has not been present for a full detention hearing. That means the public case file still reflects mostly the prosecution’s version of events, and many issues that often shape a homicide case, including possible challenges to statements made after arrest, remain unresolved.
The story has also resonated because of the ordinary places tied to it: a parked car on a road after a closed preserve, a front porch in a suburban neighborhood, a family home where deputies found two victims near the entrance. The victims were not strangers gathered in a random encounter. They were close relatives linked by children, custody concerns and a relationship that prosecutors say had not fully ended. That has given the case a tight, painful focus for the families who filled the courtroom this week. It has also left a larger question that the courts, not the early headlines, will have to answer: whether the state can prove the planning and intent it has laid out so forcefully in the first days of the prosecution.
As of April 1, Strouble remained jailed, and the next major court date was set for April 6, when prosecutors are expected to press their request to keep her in custody while the murder case proceeds.
Author note: Last updated April 1, 2026.