Ex-Cable Guy Handed Life Sentence in Hyde Park Woman's 2006 Slaying

Anthony Triplett | Cook County Sheriff

Chicago, IL, June 2, 2016 -- An ex-cable repairman was handed a second life sentence for the murder of a Hyde Park woman who allowed him into her home for a scheduled cable service, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced in a news release.

Anthony Triplett, 35, was sentenced for murder of Janice Ordidge, 39, nearly a decade after the murder occurred in October 2006.

Triplett, described as a “monster” by Cook County prosecutors during his trial, is currently serving a similar life sentence in the Illinois Department of Corrections for the murder of a 23-year-old Southwest Side woman, Urszula Sakowska. Prosecutors said Triplett also sexually assaulted and murdered the young woman during a service call in December 2006.

According to the charges, Triplett went to Ordidge’s Hyde Park apartment on Oct. 31, 2006, after she had contacted Comcast for cable TV service. Prosecutors said that once inside Ordidge’s apartment, he sexually assaulted and strangled her.

Ordidge’s body was found several days later submerged in the bathtub after Triplett had fled the scene, prosecutors stated.

Although Chicago police reportedly notified Comcast that Triplett was being looked at as a suspect in Ordidge’s death, the victims’ families claim in lawsuits that the cable company continued to allow Triplett to make service calls at people’s homes for subcontractor, Premier.

The Chicago Police Department also came under fire when DNA evidence from Ordidge’s murder did not come back until after the second woman, Sakowska, was murdered weeks later under the same circumstances on Dec. 8, 2006. She, too, had been sexually assaulted, slain and submerged in a bathtub..

A jury found Triplett guilty for Sakowska’s slaying in 2013, who was sentenced to natural life in prison. He was convicted of Ordidge’s murder last month in a jury trial.

In both cases, Triplett was charged with first degree murder, aggravated sexual assault and robbery.

He was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison by Cook County Judge Kevin Sheehan at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California.