Midwest
Firefighter paramedic led secret life as mafia hitman before family fell apart: son
In 2013, Ken Tekiela revealed a secret to his son that he had been keeping for over 20 years.
At the time, he had been battling a crippling heroin addiction for about a decade and had been estranged from the 28-year-old for about five years. But his firstborn, who believed things were worsening for the patriarch, put him in a detox facility to help him get clean.
“He relapsed a few times, but his journey to recovery was positive,” Kyle Tekiela told Fox News Digital. “Once he felt like he had recovered . . . I think that opened up some doors for him. And I think it gave him the confidence to tell me. But it was a huge shock. It was like, ‘Did I hear that correctly?’”
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Ken Tekiela at the firehouse, circa 1984. (Kyle Tekiela)
Tekiela, a celebrated firefighter paramedic and father of two, confessed that he had led a secret double life as a hitman for the Chicago mob.
Kyle is now detailing his father’s story in a true-crime podcast titled “Crook County,” a co-production of iHeartPodcasts and Tenderfoot TV.
It explores how Tekiela, known as “The Kid,” reportedly rose through the ranks of the Chicago Outfit and its lasting impact on his family. It features candid sit-down interviews with Tekiela and other loved ones.
Kyle Tekiela is an award-winning filmmaker and Ken Tekiela’s oldest son. (Kyle Tekiela)
“These are family secrets that probably should have stayed buried,” Kyle admitted. “But they’ve come to light, and it’s not easy to digest.
“It took a long time for me to process it before I was confident enough to share it with others. But I did have to ask myself, is this something we bury forever? Or do we own it and say, ‘This is who we are,’ and make the best of it and maybe learn some lessons from it, too?”
Ken Tekiela is seen here cooking in the firehouse kitchen. In 1982, he passed all his tests to become a firefighter paramedic. Kyle Tekiela said his father asked the original capo who invited him into the Outfit if he could pursue his dream of working for the fire department. The capo, whose name wasn’t revealed, gave him his blessing. (Kyle Tekiela)
Growing up, Kyle saw his father as “a local hero” who was revered in his community. Working 24-hour shifts and being away from home was normal for Tekiela and his family. However, he always remained devoted to his most important role – that of father.
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“Crook County” is available for streaming. (iHeartPodcasts and Tenderfoot TV)
“That was his job,” said Kyle. “We thought we had a super dad growing up. He was a firefighter paramedic, and their schedules are typically somewhere around 24, 48 hours or somewhere in between. That gave him a lot of time away from home.”
Tekiela’s dedication to duty stemmed from tragedy. In 1979, American Airlines Flight 191 crashed near Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. A total of 273 people died. Tekiela was about 23 years old at the time.
Aerial view of emergency vehicles the morning after the plane crashed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago on May 26, 1979. (UPI/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)
“Watching all these first responders, firefighters and paramedics go and try to get control of the scene inspired him,” said Kyle. “That’s what made him go, ‘I want to be that. I want to help people.’ At that point, he had been working for the mob, not helping people.”
According to “Crook County,” Ken Tekiela successfully kept his mafia life a secret from his family and closest friends for over two decades. (Kyle Tekiela )
But before duty called, Tekiela described having a tumultuous childhood. He said he was kicked out of his house by his mother at age 16. Struggling to find a way and living out of his car, a desperate Tekiela robbed a drug dealer, who turned out to be the nephew of a capo. The FBI describes a capo in the mafia as a ranking made member who leads a crew of soldiers, similar to a military captain.
The Chicago Outfit was the city’s branch of the American mafia. Its most notorious leader was Al Capone. (Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Tekiela was 17 at the time. Kyle said the capo found his father and questioned him. Then he made an offer that the patriarch couldn’t refuse.
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Ken Tekiela’s high school photo. (Kyle Tekiela)
“It was the wrong place, wrong time, wrong decision,” Kyle explained. “But he had spunk. And the capo saw that. So they brought him in. He had nowhere else to go, so he had no choice. . . . He was the little guy under their wings. He was ‘The Kid.’ And he wanted to impress them.”
According to Kyle, Tekiela’s role in the Outfit was to “take out the people that the mob wanted out of the mob.”
“People who were f—–g up and being selfish, or stealing from the organization,” Kyle explained.
Ken Tekiela with his then-girlfriend, Holly. They married in 1984. (Kyle Tekiela)
Kyle believes that the secret to his father’s survival – not getting killed or thrown in jail – was “not asking too many questions.” In 1982, Tekiela became a firefighter paramedic, making him an asset to the Outfit.
“It was about just doing your job, doing it well, and going home – not doing anything extra,” said Kyle. “A lot of these guys did stuff on the side to get extra money. They’re selling drugs, which you’re not supposed to do. They were running girls. They were stealing. . . . He didn’t want to be like those other guys. And I think mentally, that took him a long way.”
The Chicago Outfit was active in the city during the ‘70s and ’80s. Seen here is a mugshot of Chicago Outfit mob boss Joseph “Joey” Hohn Aiuppa (1907-1997), circa 1980. (Potter and Potter Auctions/Gado/Getty Images)
“Who knows what would have happened if he didn’t become a firefighter,” Kyle reflected. “And I think selfishly, the mob realized that, as a first responder, he’s an asset. They’ve got someone going to crime scenes. . . . He can have a family, be a civilian, but [the mob] also has a guy on the inside who can do their bidding – or their beating, I should say.”
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Ken Tekiela in his 20s. By then he was working with the Chicago Outfit, his son claimed. (Kyle Tekiela)
Tekiela’s wife never suspected that her husband may have had a double life. They married in 1984 and Kyle was born a year later.
“For my mom, ignorance was bliss,” said Kyle. “She believed everything he told her. She didn’t dig. She wasn’t suspicious. And if she’s not suspicious, the kids are not suspicious.
“He was able to keep that whole world away from our little home that he kept outside the city in the suburbs. It was just a regular middle-class town. And because of his career as a firefighter, he had respect in the community. And he had that time away from the house to do whatever he needed to do for the Outfit.”
Ken Tekiela fighting a fire. In 1999, he suffered a work-related injury that resulted in an addiction to heroin. (Kyle Tekiela)
Things took a turn when Kyle was in high school. When he was about 16 years old, his parents began fighting frequently. He noticed that his father’s inflamed veins “were terrible” and that he acted “erratic.”
“When I was 14, he got into an accident,” said Kyle. “He was holding a ladder for a firefighter who was going up into the attic of a tall ceiling warehouse during a fire. . . . The ladder kicked out, and it fell on top of the firefighter.
“The ladder and firefighter fell on top of my dad. . . . It almost killed him. He had a bunch of surgeries, and the doctors were prescribing opiates. . . . Then he just started using [heroin]. In his words, ‘I took a liking to those painkillers, but after a while it wasn’t enough.’ He got addicted, and it just became out of his control.”
Ken Tekiela with his wife Holly. Kyle Tekiela was 17 when he first suspected that his father was using drugs. (Kyle Tekiela)
The podcast details how Tekiela ultimately lost his job, and “everything fell apart pretty quickly” with the mob.
It was during Tekiela’s recovery at a detox facility, and a yearning to rebuild his relationship with his son, that he started opening up about his past.
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“I think . . . he feels relief and has accepted his reality, his history,” said Kyle. “He hasn’t lived a very good life over the last 10, 15 years. . . . It’s been hard. . . . I pay his rent. I just bought him a car. He’s like a child. And I think everyone knows my dad f—d up big time and destroyed our whole family. But they didn’t know why.”
Kyle Tekiela said the last time he saw his father was in 2023. (Kyle Tekiela)
“Even though the context is horrible, it’s still his story, and his story has meaning,” Kyle reflected. “I think for him, he thought, ‘Am I going to be a drug dealer or a drug addict who ruined my family, or am I going to finally tell people who I was, how I got there, how I tried to get out but couldn’t and how it fell apart?’
“Even after he told me all this stuff, even after all the pain and struggle we went through with his addiction, I still love him,” Kyle continued. “And I respect him more now that he finally told me everything. . . . Now I know there was a reason why he was keeping secrets. There’s a reason why he was on drugs. It’s hard to keep a secret, and he had to deal with the pain somehow.”
Kyle, himself a husband and father to a 10-year-old son, said that speaking to Tekiela for the podcast has been “a healing experience.” Today, Kyle and Ken speak on the phone “occasionally.” Kyle said he assumes his father is “still using in some capacity.”
Kyle Tekiela speaks to his father on the phone occasionally. (Kyle Tekiela)
“I can see the real remorse in him,” said Kyle. “When he tells these stories – these awful things he had to do – there’s real remorse. He’s ashamed of it all.”
Today, Tekiela has “zero fear” of speaking out. Kyle feels the same way.
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Ken Tekiela tells his story in “Crook County.” (Kyle Tekiela)
“This is not just another story about the mob,” said Kyle. “It’s a journey of discovery between a father and a son. . . . There’s a lot of growth. And the thing is, a lot of people don’t want to talk about their feelings. They feel it’s weak to talk about your feelings or to seek therapy. But by watching my dad essentially treat me like a therapist and tell me everything – I could see the weight lift off of him.”
“I think it’s so important for families to talk about hard truths,” said Kyle. “As soon as you start keeping secrets, that’s when it all falls apart.”
New episodes of “Crook County” are available for streaming weekly.
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It was a particularly heinous crime. Four workers at a cemetery near Chicago dug up more than 100 bodies and dumped the remains elsewhere in the grounds, in order to resell the burial plots for profit.
Now, nearly two decades after the scandal broke at Burr Oak cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, scientists have released details of how a tiny clump of moss became crucial forensic evidence that helped convict the grave robbers.
Dr Matt von Konrat, head of botanical collections at the Field Museum in Chicago, was drawn into the case in 2009 when he received a phone call from the FBI. “They asked if I knew about moss and brought the evidence to the museum,” he said.
An investigation by local police had found human remains buried under inches of earth at the cemetery, a site of enormous historical importance. Several prominent African Americans are buried at the cemetery, including Emmett Till, whose murder in 1955 became a catalyst for the civil rights movement, and the blues singer Dinah Washington.
Alongside the re-buried remains, forensic specialists spotted various plants, including a piece of moss about the size of a fingertip. Hoping that it would help them crack the case, the FBI asked von Konrat to work out where the moss came from and how long it had been there.
After examining the moss under a microscope and comparing it with dried specimens in the museum’s collection, the scientists identified it as common pocket moss, or Fissidens taxifolius. A survey at the cemetery found that the species did not grow where the corpses were discovered, but was abundant in a lightly shaded area beneath some trees where police suspected the bodies had been dug up. The moss had evidently been moved with the bodies.
But when was the crime committed? The answer lay in a quirk of moss biology. “This is the cool thing about moss,” von Konrat said. “When we’re dead, we’re dead, but with mosses, it’s bizarre. Even when we might think they’re dead, they can still have an active metabolism.” The metabolism drops slowly over time as cells gradually die off.
One way to measure moss metabolism is to bathe it in light and see how much is absorbed by the chlorophyll used to make food through photosynthesis, and how much light is re-emitted. The scientists ran tests on the moss found with the bodies, on a fresh clump from the cemetery, and other specimens from the museum’s collection.
“We concluded that the moss had been buried for less than 12 months and that was important because the accused’s whole line of defence was that the crime took place before their employment. They were arguing that it happened years and years earlier,” said von Konrat. Details are published in Forensic Sciences Research.
Doug Seccombe, a former FBI agent who worked on the case and a co-author of the study, said the plant material from the cemetery was “key” to securing the convictions when the case went to trial.
Von Konrat, who is a fan of the BBC forensic science drama Silent Witness, never expected to be working on a criminal case, but now wants to highlight how important mosses might be for forensic investigations. “I had no idea we’d be using our science, our collections, in this manner,” he said. “It underscores how important natural history collections are. We never know how we might apply them in the future.”
Indiana basketball sharpshooter Lamar Wilkerson is known for his generosity.
Upon joining the Hoosiers, he gave a tidy sum of his NIL earnings to his previous program, Sam Houston State.
“I was blessed to be able go from that, from not having a lot, to being here, having a lot more than I even knew what to do with,” Wilkerson said at the time. “I just thought, I can give them this.”
He upped the ante on IU’s Senior Night, giving his mother a Cadillac after the Hoosiers throttled Minnesota.
You could imagine her reaction.
Want more Hoosiers coverage? Sign up for IndyStar’s Hoosiers newsletter. Listen to Mind Your Banners, our IU Athletics-centric podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch the latest on IndyStar TV: Hoosiers.
5 key issues the Iowa Legislature faces in the 2026 session
Eminent domain, property taxes and DOGE cuts are all on the table for legislators this session.
Repeat offenders convicted of multiple serious crimes would receive a mandatory 20-year prison sentence under a bill passed by House lawmakers.
House lawmakers debated for more than an hour about high costs, lack of prison space and the bill’s impact on Black Iowans before voting 68-23 to pass House File 2542, sending it to the Iowa Senate.
Seven Democrats, including Minority Leader Brian Meyer, D-Des Moines, joined Republicans in voting in favor of the bill.
“It will put public safety first,” said the bill’s floor manager, Rep. Steven Holt, R-Denison. “It will ensure that the debt to victims and society is paid. It will prioritize victims and public safety over criminals. It will establish real and effective deterrence that is nonexistent in our current system. It will reduce chaos and violence in our society.”
Here’s what to know about the bill.
What would the House Republican three strikes bill do?
Iowans who accumulate three strikes would face a mandatory 20-year prison sentence, with no parole, under the bill.
That would replace Iowa’s current law that says habitual offenders must serve a minimum three-year prison sentence before they are eligible for parole.
All felonies, as well as aggravated misdemeanors involving sexual abuse, domestic abuse, assault and organized retail theft would be considered level-one offenses that are worth one full strike.
Other aggravated misdemeanors, as well as serious misdemeanors involving assault, domestic abuse and criminal mischief would be considered level-two offenses worth half a strike each.
Lawmakers amended the bill to remove theft, harassment and possession of a controlled substance from the crimes that would count toward a person’s strikes.
And the amendment specifies that the bill would only apply to convictions that occur beginning July 1, 2026.
If someone is arrested and convicted of multiple offenses, only the most serious charge would count towards the defendant’s strikes.
Convictions would not count toward someone’s total if more than 20 years passes between a prior conviction and their current conviction.
Rep. Ross Wilburn, D-Ames, tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to say that only a violent crime would qualify as someone’s third strike, but Republicans rejected the amendment.
“The bill still scores murder, felony embezzlement and felony theft the same, even though they are very different crimes,” Wilburn said. “One point is one point and three gets you 20 years with no ability for parole or judicial discretion.”
Holt said the legislation leaves room for judicial and prosecutorial discretion.
“There are deferred sentences, there are plea bargains,” he said. “There is plenty of opportunity for grace and judicial discretion in the legislation that we are proposing.”
Bill could cost millions, require Iowa to build a new prison, agency says
A fiscal analysis of the bill by the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency said it could cost Iowa nearly $165 million more per year by 2031 based on the cost of housing inmates for longer prison stays.
- FY 2027: $33 million
- FY 2028: $66 million
- FY 2029: $99 million
- FY 2030: $132 million
- FY 2031: $164.9 million
The agency said if the bill had been in effect between fiscal year 2020 and fiscal year 2025, there would have been 5,373 people who qualified for the 20-year mandatory minimum sentence.
“An increase in the prison population due to increased (length of stay) will require the DOC to build additional prison(s),” the agency states. “The size, security and other features that a future prison may require cannot be determined, but costs would be significant.”
The analysis noted that South Dakota appropriated $650 million last fall to build a 1,500-bed prison.
As of March 1, the Iowa Department of Corrections’ website describes the state’s prison system as being overcrowded by 25%, with 8,705 inmates compared to a capacity of 6,990.
The Office of the State Public Defender could see a projected cost increase of $1.6 million due to an increased number of trials resulting from the legislation.
But the agency’s estimates come with a caveat — the Department of Corrections did not respond to its requests for data.
“The LSA has not received a response to multiple requests for information from the DOC,” the note states. “Without additional information, the LSA cannot estimate the total fiscal impact of the bill.”
Holt called the fiscal note “an embarrassment to the Department of Corrections” and “an agenda masquerading as math.”
“It is clear, in my judgment, that because they did not like the legislation they went all out and extreme to create a fiscal note that cannot be taken seriously in its assumptions,” he said. “It assumes that nothing will change, that there will be no deterrent factor and that the numbers will continue as usual.”
Black Iowans would be disproportionately impacted by the law
The Legislative Services Agency analysis says the bill “may disproportionately impact Black individuals if trends remain constant.”
Of the 29,438 people convicted in fiscal year 2025 of felonies and aggravated misdemeanors that constitute a level one offense under the bill, the agency said about 70% were White, 22% were Black and 9% were other races.
Iowa’s overall population is 83% White, 4% Black and 13% other races, the agency said.
It’s not clear how the bill’s impact would change to account for the House amendment removing some crimes from counting towards the three strikes.
“Expanding three-strike laws will intensify disparities — and that’s what this statement shows — by mandating longer sentences, limiting judicial discretion,” Wilburn said. “We already have a habitual offender statute. We already have one in place. We have a 10-year low in recidivism in our correctional system.”
Rep. Angel Ramirez, D-Cedar Rapids, said California’s three strikes law, passed in the 1990s, worsened racial disparities, and “Iowa is about to repeat the same mistake.”
“I urge every member here, do not pass legislation that our own minority impact statement tells us will deepen inequality in our state,” Ramirez said.
Holt said minority communities in Iowa are impacted by crime and that the legislation “will make citizens of all colors safer.”
And he said the minority impact statement “tells only one side of the story, doesn’t it? It tells the criminal’s story. What about the victim’s story?”
“What about the mother who will continue to tuck her kids in at night and read them Bible stories because she never became the next victim of a violent career criminal?” he said. “Where is that data point in the minority impact statement?”
House lawmakers also approved separate legislation that would increase Iowa’s statewide bond schedule, Senate File 2399.
That bill passed on a vote of 74-19.
Iowans could see more information on judges’ rulings
Iowans would have access to more information about judges’ rulings ahead of the state’s judicial retention elections under a separate measure, House File 2719, which passed on a 73-19 vote.
The Iowa secretary of state’s office would be required to publish information including:
- The percentage of cases in which the judge set a bond amount lower than the state’s bond schedule
- The frequency that the judge releases someone on their own recognizance for a violent offense compared to a nonviolent offense
- The frequency that the judge’s final sentence is lower than statutory recommendations or a prosecutor’s recommendations
- The number of times the judge issues a deferred judgement, deferred sentence or suspended sentence
- The number of times the judge’s rulings are reversed on appeal due to abuse of discretion or error of law
- The average time it takes the judge to rule on a motion or case
- The number of cases the judge has resolved compared to the number of cases on the judge’s docket
The data would have to be displayed with a five-year trend line beginning five years after the bill takes effect.
The Secretary of State’s Office would also be required to maintain a searchable database of all judicial opinions and orders for the judge’s current term and the preceding six years. The decisions would be redacted when appropriate.
And judges would have the opportunity to write a 2,000-word personal statement on their judicial philosophy or data trends present in their rulings.
Stephen Gruber-Miller covers the Iowa Statehouse and politics for the Register. He can be reached by email at sgrubermil@registermedia.com or by phone at 515-284-8169. Follow him on X at @sgrubermiller.
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