A Chicago attorney suspected in the murder of his estranged wife should be prohibited from inheriting any of her estate, the woman’s family is arguing in court.
The new court filing comes after Adam Beckerink was sentenced Monday to 93 days in jail for domestic violence and contempt of court, plus two years of probation for interference with electronic communications.
The sentence stemmed from an attack on Caitlin Tracey at her home in New Buffalo, Michigan, in January of 2024. That was nine months before she plummeted to her death in the stairwell of the South Loop high-rise where Beckerink lived.
The day before she was found dead, Beckerink had filed a missing persons report, claiming he hadn’t seen her for more than a month — but video from the building shows the couple entering just two days before that, according to the new court filing. Nearing the one-year anniversary of her death on Oct. 27, Chicago police told the Tribune Wednesday that the investigation remains ongoing.
Caitlin Tracey, woman found dead in South Loop stairwell, remembered as ‘shining star’
A Cook County prosecutor had named Beckerink in court as a suspect in his wife’s death, but he has not been charged in her death. Based on his conviction in Michigan, the new petition in probate court seeks to invoke Michigan’s “slayer statute,” which bars people from profiting financially from a death they played a felony criminal role in or who were convicted of felony abuse of the victim.
The petition also seeks to keep Tracey’s burial site a secret from Beckerink to protect her memory and her family’s privacy.
Beckerink, 47, was a tax attorney with Duane Morris LLP but was terminated after his wife’s death became public. Tracey worked in human resources for a tech firm and had built a home in New Buffalo. The pair were married in the spring of 2024, but soon separated in an on-again, off-again relationship.
In court, Beckerink pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence, and contempt of court for violating his bond, along with a felony for interfering with a 911 call by his wife. As part of the plea deal, prosecutors dropped a charge of resisting arrest.
At the sentencing, Tracey’s mother, Monica Tracey, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, gave a victim impact statement that called Beckerink a “controlling coward” who repeatedly beat her daughter, who was only 4-foot, 11 inches tall and 103 pounds.
“We continue to be re-victimized as we learn more about how Caitlin lived in this inconceivable hell with this monster,” her mother told Berrien County Judge Gary Bruce. “It is not just the trauma Caitlin endured but the ongoing nature of the trauma he is inflicting on our family … It isn’t just her death that haunts us; it is the slow-moving destruction of her life.”
Beckerink was also charged with domestic violence and other crimes stemming from another incident in August 2024, a case that was pending when Tracey was found dead at age 36, her foot severed and her skull and ribs fractured after a 24-story fall.
Tracey had filed for a court order of protection against Beckerink in 2023, accusing him of slapping her, punching her and choking her during two incidents in 2023, and throughout their relationship. She later moved to vacate the order after her parents said Beckerink threatened to sue her for defamation.
After the couple broke up, Tracey said in the order of protection petition, he continued to harass her, calling, texting or emailing some 20 times a day to see her, and calling her horrible names.
Beckerink’s attorneys, John Brayman and Todd Pugh, said their client had nothing to do with Tracey’s death, saying that there was no corroboration of her claims of abuse.