Shadwick King Again Sentenced To 30 Years For Killing Wife: State's Attorney

GENEVA, IL — For the second time in the last decade, Shadwick King has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the murder of his wife, Kathleen, according to the Kane County State's Attorney's Office.

The sentencing comes six months after the Geneva resident was found guilty of first-degree murder for the second time in the July 2014 death of his wife, who was 32 years old.

According to evidence presented in the trial, King asphyxiated Kathleen just after 5 a.m. July 6, 2014, at their home. He then put her body on Union Pacific Railway tracks in the vicinity of the 200 block of Briar Lane, near Esping Park, just blocks away from their Geneva home.

A Metra Rail conductor saw the body on the tracks shortly after 6:30 a.m. and called the police, who determined the woman was dead.

King had learned not long before Kathleen's death that she was emotionally involved with another man, according to the Kane County State's Attorney's Office.

He is required to serve his full sentence in accordance with Illinois law, officials said. He will receive credit for the time served in the Kane County jail and the Illinois Department of Corrections.

"In the 81⁄2 years since Shadwick King's horrendous act, police and prosecutors have been vigilant in their pursuit of justice for Kathleen," State's Attorney Jamie Mosser said in a statement. "Kathleen's family has remained patient, gracious and kind despite their unimaginable grief. My thoughts remain with each of them in their search for peace, and I thank them for their cooperation and assistance."

King was first convicted of the crime in March 2015 and sentenced to 30 years in prison in July of that year. But the Illinois Appellate Court Second District cited several errors made by Kane County prosecutors, including allowing a former FBI profiler to testify as an expert witness on crimes scene when he was not qualified, Patch reported. The jury's guilty verdict was nullified, and a judge ordered a new trial in 2020.

During this summer's re-trial, prosecutor Greg Sams asserted that the physical evidence proves "the railroad tracks was a crime scene. The railroad tracks was a crime scene because it was a staged crime scene," he said.

King continued to maintain his innocence, and he hired world-famous wrongful conviction attorney Kathleen Zellner, of Downers Grove, to represent him in what amounted to his second murder trial over the past seven years, Patch reported.

"Over the course of two interviews, he denies any culpability 126 times," Zellner said in her closing statements this summer. "There is no admission of guilt. When he first comes into the interview, he's had 45 minutes of sleep. Both Mr. King and Mrs. King have had a lot to drink. He's probably, over the course of that evening ... had about 12 beers."

RELATED: Kathleen Zellner: Geneva Woman's Death On Train Tracks Wasn't Murder

She also fought back on prosecutors' assertions that the crime scene was staged, calling it "illogical."

"That is just so ridiculous. It makes no sense," Zellner said. "There's many ways to dispose of a body, in water, in the forest, you know, with Lyme. I mean, there are all kinds of things. You might as well put her on a stage, you know. And then you got her dressed in a way that people are going to immediately notice. You know, wow, what is a jogger doing up on the railroad tracks? And the police said they could barely walk up there. They were losing their balance."

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