'Diabolical' Murderer Sentenced For Killing Wife in 1973

COOK COUNTY, IL -- Forty five years ago, 19-year-old Noreen Kumeta was murdered in her car along a quiet road in Barrington Hills. On Thursday, Kumeta's family members say justice was finally served. Her husband, former suburban lawyer Donnie Rudd, 76, was sentenced to 75 to 100 years in prison for the Sept. 14, 1973 murder of Kumeta, who authorities originally thought — and were told by Rudd — died in a car crash just 27 days after the two were married.

Prosecutors said Rudd's motive in killing his young bride was $120,000 in insurance payouts, according to the Daily Herald.

Rudd was sentenced under 1973 guidelines, which means he will be eligible for parole in 11 years and three months, according to the article. Referring to Rudd as "diabolical," Cook County assistant state's attorney Maria McCarthy said Noreen's murder was "cold, cunning, calculated, violent and motivated by greed,"according to the Daily Herald.

"Donnie Rudd is a rare kind of criminal," McCarthy said. "We rarely see a true sociopath ­— someone with absolutely no conscience, someone with no sense of remorse."

Kumeta was found dead in a car near Bateman and Dundee roads in Barrington Township, on Sept. 14, 1973. An emergency room doctor and a coroner originally called her death accidental, but Rudd's lawyers said prosecutors and Arlington Heights police influenced those witnesses' memories years later, according to an earlier report by the Daily Herald.

Authorities decided to reopen the investigation into Kumeta's death while investigating another case — the still-unsolved 1991 murder of Loretta Tabak-Bodtke, who was found shot to death in her Arlington Heights home. Tabak-Bodtke had been a legal client of Rudd's and had threatened to file complaints about him, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Kumeta's body was exhumed in 2013, and a second autopsy listed blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of death, the Herald reports. But medical expert for Rudd's defense concluded that Kumeta died from a spinal injury, the report added. Rudd was charged with her murder in 2015.

And this past July, a jury handed down a guilty verdict for Rudd.

Kumeta's sister, Donna Haggerton and Karen Mezera, spoke to reporters following Rudd's July conviction, and said they first became suspicious of Rudd's involvement in Noreen's death about 25 years ago. Up until then, they thought he was a grieving widower and even invited him to family gatherings.

"We feel like our sister can finally rest in peace after 45 years," Haggerton said. "She went to the grave with a terrible secret."

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