Aug. 01--A Geneva man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Friday for the murder of his wife, a crime the man said he would deny committing for the rest of his life.
Shadwick King, 47, took to the witness stand at his sentencing hearing and said he was willing to look anyone in the eye or take a lie detector test to prove he did not murder Kathleen King, the 32-year-old mother of their three sons
"The simple, honest truth: I did not kill my wife. To the last day of my life, I did not do it," he said.
King told the same story at trial this spring, but did not convince the Kane County jurors who found him guilty of his wife's first-degree murder. It was the first murder in Geneva in four decades.
Authorities say he choked his wife to death and then placed her body on railroad tracks near their Geneva home in the early- morning hours on July 6, 2014. Kathleen King had become involved in a relationship with another man, and authorities say Shadwick King killed his wife in anger and jealousy.
"It's aggravated by the fact that the defendant took the body of his wife, a mother of three, and tried to hide the crime by having her body mutilated," Assistant State's Attorney Greg Sams told Judge James Hallock.
King faced a sentence of 20 to 60 years, and Sams asked for 42 years. Public Defender Kelli Childress asked for the minimum, telling the judge "an innocent man is being sentenced."
The defense argued that prosecutors had failed to prove that King had killed his wife and presented a medical expert who said the woman's death was caused by a heart condition.
The courtroom was crowded with many of Kathleen King's family and a half-dozen offered victim-impact statements. Her father, Kurt Kuester, recalled that the day that he and his girlfriend had planned a day at the beach with the Kings' three children, who were ages 9, 7 and 5.
"I had to tell my three young grandsons that Mommy was dead," said Kuester, who is raising his grandsons.
He declined comment after the hearing.
Before sentencing, Childress argued about three hours in support of a motion for new trial, citing what she said were numerous errors throughout King's two-week trial, but the judge denied the motion, saying he believed that King's guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt.
Under state law, King must serve all 30 years of his sentence, minus credit for the year he has spent in the Kane County jail awaiting trial.
Clifford Ward is a freelance reporter.
