The Norway Trail house became both a crime scene and the place where investigators began piecing together a family’s final hours.
CRETE TOWNSHIP, Ill. — By the time deputies reached a home on East Norway Trail before dawn on March 23, the front door was open, two adults were down near the entryway, and a third victim was in a car outside, turning one family’s house into the center of a triple homicide case.
Officials later identified the dead as Jacob Lambert, 32, his mother, Stacy Forde, 54, and his stepfather, Patrick Forde, 55. Investigators say the person charged in all three killings is Jenna Strouble, 30, of St. John, Indiana, who had children with Lambert and is now facing nine counts of first-degree murder. The sheriff’s office has said the killings were targeted and domestic in nature. Court filings later added that prosecutors believe the shootings were planned and carried out across more than one location in and around Crete Township.
The first facts made public were about the house itself. Deputies were sent there after a concerned relative asked for a welfare check at about 2 a.m. When officers entered, Patrick Forde was found in the dining room area and Stacy Forde was on the stairs near the front door, according to prosecutors’ account described by local news outlets. Shell casings were on the floor nearby. Outside, or just beyond the home in a nearby cul-de-sac, officers found Lambert in a car with the passenger seat reclined. Those details made clear from the start that this was not a single-room crime scene, but a case that stretched from a vehicle to the front steps of a home where several generations had been living together.
Neighbors told ABC7 Chicago they heard gunfire before the bodies were found. Officials said Lambert and his parents lived at the house. Early public statements gave only broad information: that the victims were all residents, that one person was in custody, and that there was no threat to the public. But later court disclosures put the house in a more personal frame. Prosecutors said Lambert and Strouble had two children, now ages 3 and 4, and that Lambert’s family played a large role in their care. That family arrangement became part of the state’s theory about why the killings happened, although prosecutors also said Strouble gave no single, complete motive.
Only after the home was processed did the wider route of the night become clearer. Prosecutors said Strouble picked Lambert up late on March 22 and drove with him before stopping on Burnham Road in Sauk Village. There, they said, she offered him a back massage, pulled out a Glock from under the seat, and shot him in the head while he lay face down in the passenger seat. She then drove to the Norway Trail house, used Lambert’s keys to try doors, and shot Patrick Forde when he opened one, prosecutors said. Stacy Forde came down the stairs after hearing the commotion and was shot there, according to the same account. The home thus became the second and final stop in what prosecutors describe as one continuous plan.
The aftermath added another layer to the family setting. Prosecutors said Strouble returned to her home in St. John, where her parents and her two children were present. They said she called her sister and told her what had happened, prompting the call that sent deputies to Norway Trail. Indiana officers then went to Strouble’s home, where prosecutors said she handed over a bag containing a loaded Glock 19 with a suppressor. A vehicle registered to Lambert was found nearby. The picture that emerged was of two homes connected by children, relatives and custody concerns, and by a case that moved from one household to another in a matter of hours.
That family backdrop has remained central as the legal process begins. Prosecutors said Strouble complained about how Lambert spoke to the children, about behavior in the home, and about what she saw as shifting household rules. They also said she wrote a note the night before naming people who could care for the children if something happened. At the same time, authorities have been careful to separate allegation from proof. Final coroner findings were still pending toxicology and police reports in the early coverage, and Strouble’s defense had not fully answered the prosecution’s detailed claims in open court as of the postponed detention proceedings at the end of March.
The next stage will take place not at the house, but in court. Still, the Norway Trail address remains the fixed point in the story: the place deputies first saw the scale of what had happened, the place prosecutors say two of the victims died, and the place from which the case spread outward into custody, extradition and murder proceedings. For neighbors and relatives, it is likely to remain less a headline location than a family home now tied to three deaths and a long legal case still ahead.
Author note: Last updated April 16, 2026.