Mario Casciaro

Mario A. Casciaro is an American man who was originally convicted for the 2002 disappearance and presumed murder of Brian Carrick in Johnsburg, Illinois, then later released due to an overturned verdict.

Conviction and appeal Brian Carrick's body has never been found. Casciaro was first arrested in June 2007 and charged in McHenry County with nine counts of perjury related to the disappearance of Carrick. He was tried a third time in 2013 on the remaining count of Felony Murder by Intimidation. Casciaro is the only person to have ever been charged with Felony Murder Using Intimidation in the history of the United States. Casciaro was also one of 523 people to have ever been brought to trial in a no-body murder case in the history of the United States.

In September 2015, the Second District Appellate Court of Illinois unanimously overturned Casciaro's conviction for Murder on direct appeal. The court cited insufficiency of evidence and determined that no reasonable juror could have convicted on the evidence presented by the state.

In March 2017, Casciaro filed a Civil Rights case against McHenry County State's Attorney Office, Johnsburg Police Department, Village of Johnsburg, McHenry Police Department, and City of McHenry in the Northern District of Illinois, Western Division. Casciaro settled with the McHenry County State's Attorney's Office and the Johnsburg Police Department.

Personal life Mario Casciaro is a 2005 graduate of Illinois State University with a bachelor's degree in finance and a minor in political science. In 2005, he opened a supermarket in Fox Lake, Illinois with his family. In 2016, less than a year after his release from Menard Correctional Center, Casciaro entered law school at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He graduated law school in January 2019 with a JD and a Certificate of Advocacy from Loyola University Chicago. During law school, he interned at the Federal Defender's Program for the Northern District of Illinois; he also clerked for Thomas A. Durkin, a nationally recognized defense attorney specializing in federal terrorism cases. On November 7, 2019, Casciaro was sworn in to the Illinois State Bar.