Guilty, Guilty: Jeremy Boshears Murder Trial Verdict

JOLIET, IL — After hearing more than two weeks of evidence, a Will County jury on Monday found Jeremy Boshears guilty of first-degree murder in the early morning gunshot death of Katie Kearns inside the Joliet Outlaws clubhouse.

The jury also found Boshears guilty of another serious felony offense, concealing a homicidal death.

Boshears wept in court, saying repeatedly, "I didn't kill her," after the verdict was read.

Kearns died around 2 a.m. Nov. 13, 2017. Within three hours, Boshears arrived at the St. Anne farm of longtime Joliet Outlaw Ron Keagle. Keagle was considered higher in rank than current Joliet Outlaws club president Jimmy McCoy, testimony showed.

Keagle and his wife, Georgia, helped Boshears push Kearns' Jeep, with her body wrapped in a mattress and plastic pool table cover, into their metal pole barn. The pole barn remained locked up until Will County sheriff's detectives arrived at the farm, a few days after Kearns was reported missing. Police used her Facebook account to track the location of her cell phone.

Her cell phone was found inside her purse, which was contained in the tarp and pool table cover. The Kankakee County autopsy showed that Kearns died from a single gunshot wound.

On Wednesday, Joliet criminal defense lawyer Chuck Bretz called his client to the witness stand to testify in his own defense.

Boshears told the jury that he was turning off the lights and shutting down the Outlaws clubhouse when Kearns got upset at him. An argument erupted and when she went to the bar to retrieve her keys, she saw a gun and grabbed it, pointing it at her head, he testified.

Boshears testified he begged her and screamed not to shoot herself, but she pulled the trigger. Boshears testified that the gun belonged to Joliet Outlaw probate Colby O'Neal, who had accompanied Boshears to the clubhouse after the two men hung out at the Woody's Bar in Joliet, where Kearns was tending bar, earlier that Sunday night.

Boshears testified that his first phone call, following Kearns' death, was to O'Neal, who turned around near Morris and returned to Joliet. O'Neal testified that he participated in the cleanup of the death scene at the clubhouse during the wee hours of the morning, and with Boshears, over the next couple of days.