The Will County’s state’s attorney wants a man charged with the 1988 murder of his wife to move to another location while on pretrial release because there is a risk of “contact, surveillance, perceived intimidation or harm.”

Both parties in the case against Gilbert Bernal, 82, who is charged with the murder of his wife Joan Bernal plan to address the issue at a Feb. 26 court hearing.

Bernal was granted pretrial release on Feb. 11 as he awaits trial.

State’s Attorney James Glasgow is requesting Will County Judge Art Smigielski to vacate his pretrial release order for Bernal and order him to “provide an alternative residence not contiguous or bordering” Glasgow and his families’ residence.

“This proximity creates a continuing untenable risk of accidental or intentional contact, surveillance, perceived intimidation or harm involving the defendant (or the defendants associates), involving the elected state’s attorney, the lead prosecutor responsible for the defendants prosecution and his family,” according to a petition filed on Wednesday by Glasgow’s office.

The petition suggested the “genesis” of the renewed prosecution of Bernal “exacerbates the potential for accidental or intentional contact, surveillance or perceived intimidation.”

Bernal has been charged for a second time with the murder of his wife, who was 34 years old at the time she went missing in 1988. Her body has never been found.

Glasgow dropped the murder case back in 1994 based on defense witnesses who claimed to have seen Joan Bernal alive.

But the case was revived following a 2025 episode from a TV show called “Cold Justice.” The show worked with detectives from the Will County Sheriff’s Office to reinvestigate the case.

The petition from Glasgow’s office on Wednesday said he “authorized the matter to be re-indicted” in 2025 after reviewing new evidence “uncovered through further investigation by law enforcement.”

That evidence includes “statements that will be admissible under the forfeiture by wrongdoing hearsay exception,” according to the petition.

Forfeiture by wrongdoing is a legal concept that allowed Glasgow to use hearsay statements from Kathleen Savio, 40, whom former Bolingbrook Police Sgt. Drew Peterson, 71, was convicted of killing after a trial in 2012.

Forfeiture by wrongdoing allows prosecutors to use “certain hearsay statements from witnesses if the defendant deliberately made those witnesses unavailable to prevent them from testifying,” according to Glasgow’s website.