Mokena man pleads guilty in murder-for-hire plot to kill victim’s father, LaSalle County judge

YORKVILLE – When Michael S. Swift was sitting in the Kendall County jail awaiting trial on a charge of stabbing to death a 21-year-old Ottawa woman, he was busy arranging the murders of the victim’s father and the La Salle County judge who was overseeing the court case.

What Swift didn’t know was that another jail inmate had informed authorities of Swift’s plans and that the person with whom Swift was making the murder-for-hire deal was, in fact, an undercover law enforcement officer.

In a La Salle County courtroom last month, Swift pleaded guilty to a first-degree murder charge in front of the same judge he had intended for the contract killing and was sentenced to 53 years in prison.

At the Kendall County Courthouse in Yorkville on Monday, Swift pleaded guilty to two counts of solicitation of murder and received an additional 25 years in prison time in a plea deal with the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Swift, 30, of Mokena will serve the two sentences consecutively for a total of 78 years.

Ray Taylor, the father of murder victim Grace Taylor and until recently a La Salle County Sheriff’s deputy, looked Swift in the eye as the defendant stood handcuffed in Kendall County Presiding Judge Robert Pilmer’s courtroom.

“You are going to die in prison,” Taylor said to Swift. “You have done enough damage to your family and to mine.”

“You took her life and you raped her,” Taylor said. “I’m trying to forgive and understand why you did what you did. I truly hope you can do some reflecting on yourself.”

Mother Ann Taylor also made a statement and, like her husband, spoke directly to Swift.

“We never even knew you until you killed my daughter,” Ann Taylor said. “Our baby was just 21 years old and starting out her life. You took that from us.”

Ann Taylor concluded her remarks to Swift: “I hold onto my faith. Someday you are going to have to answer to your maker.”

Grace Taylor was found dead of multiple stab wounds in her Ottawa apartment April 19, 2021. A crime scene technician recovered a knife that tested positive for DNA from both Taylor and Swift.

“He essentially slit her throat in her sleep,” Ann Taylor said later.

Kendall County Assistant State’s Attorney Ryan Phelps said Swift was arrested in connection with the murder-for-hire plot on Nov. 23, 2021, while languishing in the county lockup.

Swift’s intended targets were Ray Taylor, then a LaSalle County Sheriff’s deputy, and La Salle County Circuit Judge Cynthia M. Raccuglia, who was handling Swift’s case in the murder of Grace Taylor.

Phelps said that on Nov. 12, 2021, Swift had offered the undercover officer $15,000 for each of the contract murders and around the same period of time provided the informant with $300 as a kind of down payment.

Raccuglia said she had no comment beyond the open-court remarks she made at the time of Swift’s murder plea in La Salle County.

At that time, the judge publicly acknowledged she was targeted for murder but said this presented no conflict and would not preclude her from accepting Swift’s plea in the Ottawa courthouse.

“I could [not] care less about that case,” Raccuglia had said.

Ann Taylor said after Swift’s guilty plea and sentencing that the events in the Kendall courtroom helped give her and her husband “a little bit of closure” to their ordeal.

“We’re grateful we didn’t have to sit through a trial,” Taylor said. She also wanted to express gratitude to Pilmer for allowing them to speak in the courtroom.

Ann Taylor also said she and her husband were helped along the way by first-responders, prosecutors and many others.

“We’re just thankful we had such a great support network,” Taylor said. “They made a horrible situation as painless as possible.”

Ann Taylor said her daughter Grace was working as a dispatcher for a trucking company, which is where she met Swift, a truck driver.

In court, then-State’s Attorney Todd Martin of LaSalle County said Swift told police he acted “out of anger or jealousy.”

After witnesses tipped off Ottawa police, Swift gave a statement in which he admitted he left his home early April 19, 2021, let himself into Grace Taylor’s apartment and then killed her.

When the Taylors learned that Ray had been targeted for the contract murder, their world was upended yet again.

Grace Taylor’s grieving brothers and sisters feared for their own lives, Ann Taylor said.

Ray Taylor, now a municipal police officer, said the tragic experience has made him a better officer of the law.

Ann Taylor said she sees this in her husband, too.

“The dynamics of something like this happening to you ... these are real people,” she said. “He knows how it feels now. There is more empathy and compassion. It’s mind-blowing.”

Ann Taylor said she is working to accept what has happened and adjust to her new reality.

For Michael Swift and for Grace Taylor, the die is cast.

“He’s going to die in prison, and nothing’s going to bring our daughter back,” Ann Taylor said.