Boshears' Gamble To Testify In His Own Defense Backfires

JOLIET, IL — It became the most surprising moment of Jeremy Boshears' jury trial. Attorney Chuck Bretz called the first-degree murder defendant to testify in his own defense surrounding the death of Katie Kearns inside the Joliet Outlaws clubhouse.

At 2:15 p.m. Monday, after about eight hours of deliberations during the course of two days, the Will County jury of six men and six women rejected Boshears' version of events, finding him guilty of first-degree murder and concealing a homicidal death.

On Monday, the Will County State's Attorney's Office of Jim Glasgow issued a news release indicating the 36-year-old Boshears is eligible for a sentence of 45 years to life in prison.

His next hearing date is May 23. A sentencing date has not been set. Boshears will have to serve 100 percent of his upcoming murder sentence, according to Will County State's Attorney's Office spokeswoman Carole Cheney.

On April 27, Boshears remained on the witness stand for most of that day. Boshears told the jury how he was following the strict orders of Joliet Outlaw Club President Jimmy McCoy, who was directing the cover-up surrounding the 24-year-old Joliet bartender's death.

Boshears told the jury that McCoy orchestrated the events surrounding the cleanup inside the Outlaws clubhouse where the fatal gunshot occurred. McCoy was responsible for notifying everyone at the Joliet Outlaws not to call the Will County Sheriff's police surrounding the disappearance of Kearns, according to Boshears.

At the start of the trial outside the jury's presence, McCoy entered Will County Judge Dave Carlson's courtroom, along with his lawyer, Neil Patel.

In front of the judge, prosecutors asked McCoy more than a dozen questions about the events that happened during the middle of the night after Kearns died. McCoy refused to answer any of the questions, invoking his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

As a result, prosecutors never called McCoy to testify during the murder trial, and the jury never saw his face. Nowadays, McCoy lives in Holladay, Tennessee.

On the witness stand, Boshears testified the gun Kearns used to kill herself was behind the bar, and that fellow Joliet Outlaw, Colby O'Neal, forgot the pistol when he left the club around 2 a.m.

"He left the gun there," Boshears testified. "He left the gun there. He was a probate, yes sir."

Boshears told the jury he wanted to call the police immediately, to notify them in the middle of the night that Kearns just shot herself, but Boshears claimed McCoy ordered him not to call the authorities, so that's what Boshears did.

In the days that followed, Boshears testified he became scared when McCoy showed up at his house in Coal City, supposedly wearing all-black, threatening him and his family.

Perhaps the most important revelation during the three-week-long murder trial came when Assistant Will County State's Attorney Dan Egan hammered home the fact that Boshears sent Kearns a text message around 8:30 a.m. inquiring whether she had made it home on Nov, 13, 2017.

By the time the murder defendant sent the text, the jury learned, Kearns had been dead for at least six hours.

Boshears testified he drove her body, wrapped in a pool table cover and a futon mattress from the Joliet Outlaws' basement, to a pole barn owned by Joliet Outlaw Ron Keagle and his wife, Georgia. The three of them pushed Kearns' Jeep inside the pole barn, and then the door was locked.

Afterward, Ron Keagle gave Boshears a ride back to Boshears' house in Coal City.

Before hitting the road from Joliet to Kankakee driving Kearns' Jeep, Boshears testified he gave O'Neal the keys for his truck because "his wife needed the truck." Boshears also gave O'Neal his cell phone to bring to his home in Coal City.

"So nobody would know where I was going," Boshears told the prosecutor.

Boshears testified he realized the police could track his cell phone pings.

A few days later, Will County Sheriff's detectives arrived at the Keagle farm and found Kearns' body wrapped in the back of her Jeep. Detectives obtained data from Facebook to locate her phone.

"Why didn't you get rid of Katie Kearns' phone?" Egan asked Boshears on the witness stand.

"Honestly," Boshears told the prosecutor, "I can't answer that. I never thought about that."

The autopsy revealed that no gunshot residue was found on Kearns' hands. The homicide victim suffered one gunshot through her skull.

When the Will County Sheriff's Office raided Boshears' Coal City house, police confiscated two of Boshears' black-and-white flannel shirts that had gunshot residue on them. Will County's CSIs also seized his .45-caliber handgun and a fully loaded gun magazine from his kitchen.

When detectives searched his pick-up, police found three shovels in the back of the truck.

If the police had not found Kearns' body in the quick manner they did, the shovels may have been used to bury Kearns' body somewhere else, according to trial testimony.

As far as driving Kearns' Jeep to Kankakee in the dead of night with her body in the back, "was that the right thing to do for Katie?" Egan asked Boshears during his April 27 testimony.

"It was not the right thing to do," Boshears testified.

In Monday's news release, Glasgow praised Assistant State's Attorneys Dan Egan, Tom Bahar, Steve Platek and Mark Shlifka; High Tech Crimes Unit Chief Investigator Megan Brooks; Victim Witness Advocate Esther Borrego; and Albert Bailey and Gus Martinucci, who assisted with technology support, for their dedication and perseverance.

Glasgow also thanked Will County Sheriff's deputies Terry Bergin, Vince Disalvo, Jeffrey Tolbert, Rando Simeon, Michael Eriks, and James Zdzinicki, and Officer James Leon of the Romeoville Police Department.

Egan, Bahar and Platek handled the prosecution's case in the courtroom. Egan has been with the State's Attorney's Office for 11 years, Bahar 13 years and Platek for 25 years.