Did Bath Salts Abuse Drive 'Drifter' to Kill in Will County?

Nine days before Michael Eberle allegedly beat a man to death after breaking into his place of work, the woman he lived with leveled accusations of drug-induced delirium in a petition to keep him out of their home.

"Michael has a history of substance abuse. Currently I believe he is abusing bath salts that are making him irrational, paranoid and delusional," she wrote in a March 16 petition for an order of protection in Kendall County Court.

The woman and Eberle, who was charged Monday in Will County Court with murdering Patrick Shaughnessy, have a 14-year-old daughter together.

Bath salts, which are synthetic stimulants that can produce results similar to cocaine or methamphetamine, also can cause "agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia, and delusions," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Yorkville and some surrounding communities late last year, partially in an effort to include more varieties in the local ordinance than were included in the state law.

Synthetic weed captured headlines last summer when Aurora resident Karen Dobner said she  when he crashed his car in Batavia Township. Dobner  that her son  smoked some "potpourri," known as iAroma or Iaroma, hours before the one-car crash that killed him.

More recently on Joliet's far west side in Kendall County - on the night before Eberle's girlfriend sought the order of protection - she claimed he "tore apart my entire garage because he thought everything was burning. He broke or threw away or threw water on my shovels, gardening tools, books, food, my bike, skateboards, etc. ... When I asked him to stop, he got agitated and got in my face because I wouldn't believe that everything is burning."

She told of Eberle threatening to kick in her door and strangling her if she locked him out, and said he was hospitalized for psychiatric care after the police took him away.

She declined to further discuss Eberle or her relationship with him on Monday.

Until the March 15 episode, Eberle apparently lived with his girlfriend in a house on Joliet's far west side in Kendall County. At his bond hearing in Will County court on Monday, when Judge Marzell Richardson asked him for his address, Eberle said, "I live here now," in the county jail.

Will County Sheriff's Department Deputy Chief Ken Kaupas called Eberle an area "drifter." According to county jail records, he was homeless at the time of his arrest.

Another woman — Eberle's ex-wife — claimed in a petition for an order of protection in Will County court that no one was hallucinating when her garage caught fire. And she blamed Eberle for burning it down.

The ex-wife said in her July 1 petition that Michael Eberle told her she needed to "grow eyes in the back of my f---ing head" after a home she was trying to sell caught "fire and he is the #1 suspect. He has demolished the entire home" on Gael Drive.

Chief Steve Engeldow confirmed at the time of the June 28 garage fire on Gael Drive that the blaze was under investigation. No criminal charges have been filed in connection with that fire.

The marriage was dissolved 20 days after she petitioned for her order, which was not granted.

Kaupas said detectives still don't know what prompted Eberle to break into Shaughnessy's place of work at Knauer on the Interstate 55 frontage road in .

Before intruding at Knauer Industries — a manufacturer of burial vaults — and killing the 69-year-old Shaughnessy, Eberle tried to break into a house in Saddlebrook Estates subdivision but was frightened off by a resident, police said.

He also allegedly stole a pickup truck from a Troy Township farm, police said. Eberle rammed the pickup in reverse through the closed garage door and drove away after the farm owner found him sitting in the driver's seat, officials said.

Kaupas said detectives are just as unsure of Eberle's motives in those two other incidents, for which he faces charges of burglary and theft.

Synthetic drugs marketed as bath salts were outlawed in Illinois in July. The products have been described as "fake cocaine" and reportedly can cause hallucinations and paranoia.

Editor's note: The names of Eberle's ex-wife and girlfriend have been removed from this article.