Prosecutor Hammers Boshears For Lies After Katie Kearns Died

JOLIET, IL — If Assistant Will County State's Attorney Dan Egan sounded like a broken record during Wednesday's cross-examination of Joliet Outlaws first-degree murder defendant Jeremy Boshears, that's because Egan wanted it that way.

As the jury listened, Egan asked Boshears again and again, "So you lied to the police, didn't you? So you didn't pick up the phone and call emergency services?"

Most of the time, Boshears answered in agreement.

Of particular note, Egan hammered Boshears for sending Katie Kearns a text around 8:30 a.m. — more than six hours after her gunshot death — asking whether the 24-year-old Mokena woman made it home all right.

Boshears testified he knew Kearns was already dead when he sent the text message.

Boshears also admitted he grabbed the keys for Kearns' Jeep and made the unilateral decision — without approval of Joliet Outlaws President Jimmy McCoy — to drive Kearns' body to the farm in St. Anne owned by long-time Joliet Outlaw higher-up Ron Keagle.

According to Boshears, much of last week's murder trial testimony from Ron Keagle was false. Keagle told the jury Boshears never told him anything about Kearns' dead body, he only knew that Boshears' vehicle broke down.

On Wednesday, Boshears testified he pulled into the Keagle farm between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m. He saw their living room TV on, so he walked inside. Boshears testified he told Ron Keagle that Kearns shot herself, and he needed to hide the body.

A few days later, Will County Sheriff's detectives arrived at the farm and found Kearns' body wrapped in a mattress and a pool table cover 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.

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

During much of his testimony, Boshears insisted he was following the orders of McCoy, who told him and other Outlaws that nobody would be calling the police even though Boshears asserted Kearns fatally shot herself as his invited guest into the clubhouse.

From Egan's vantage point, Boshears could have called the police before he ever talked with the Outlaws president, yet Boshears chose not to.

Egan wondered why Boshears selected Colby O'Neal, a Joliet Outlaws probate, as his first phone call after Kearns' died, around 2:25 a.m.?

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

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

During efforts to conceal the death, Boshears testified he went into the basement of the clubhouse and retrieved a futon mattress from one of the many bunk beds.

Back upstairs, O'Neal and another Outlaw, Cory Espeland, rolled Kearns into the tarp and mattress, and carried her body to her Jeep, he testified.

Boshears testified he backed her Jeep right behind the clubhouse, so his fellow Outlaws could load her body into the back.

He then drove to Kankakee.

Before hitting the road, Boshears gave O'Neal the keys for his truck because "his wife needed the truck." He 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.

In the coming days, Boshears testified, he spoke with Kearns' worried family. They reported her missing. He told them he was "throwing out feelers out on the streets."

Egan asked what Boshears meant by "throwing out feelers."

"I guess contacts, people and asking where she was at," Boshears testified.

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2017, Boshears told Kearns' brother that he walked Kearns outside the Outlaws' clubhouse to her Jeep, hugged her, gave her a goodbye kiss and watched as she drove home toward New Lenox.

"And that wasn't the truth, was it?" Egan asked.

"No, sir," Boshears testified.

Egan also reminded Boshears how he told two Will County Sheriff's detectives that he sent Kearns a text two days earlier, asking whether she made it back home.

"But obviously, she couldn't text because she was dead, right?" Egan asked.

"I sent a text to go along with what I was told, hopefully, you made it home. I had followed orders, sir," Boshears testified.

Prior to his arrest by the Will County Sheriff's Office at his house in Coal City, Boshears got an unexpected visit from McCoy, who lived in Bradley.

McCoy showed up at his house, "dressed in all black."

"I got scared," Boshears told the jury. "You come in my home, and he yelled at me. I disobeyed a direct order."

The jury heard that McCoy never gave an order for Boshears to bring Kearns' Jeep and her body to Keagle's property in St. Anne. McCoy grew angry that several Joliet Outlaws were now pulled into the young woman's death.

Boshears testified McCoy threatened him and his family "and he asked for my vest."

Boshears claimed he told McCoy "to come and take it."

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.

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

Egan asked why Boshears returned to the clubhouse during the coming days to wipe down the remaining blood stains and remove a bar stool, wood trim from the wall and confiscate a Joliet Outlaws floor mat where Kearns' body landed?

Why did Boshears go with O'Neal to a Joliet convenience store to buy jugs of bleach?

Why did Boshears drive with O'Neal to the New Lenox Walmart to buy a new smoke detector to cover the bullet hole in the Joliet Outlaws ceiling?

"Sir, I just watched someone shoot themselves," Boshears testified, raising his voice. "This would fall on my head."

Within four days of meeting Kearns, Boshears began sending her hundreds of text messages. One let Kearns know that Boshears wanted to build her an empire, Egan reminded the defendant.

Boshears testified they made an instant connection because of family grief.

Boshears' mother died earlier in 2017, and now his uncle just died. Kearns had lost her mother a decade earlier, and she still struggled with her mother's loss.

Egan asked the murder defendant if Kearns shot herself in the head after becoming upset when Boshears told her she could not attend the 21-gun salute military funeral service for Boshears' uncle, which was 11:30 a.m. later that day.

"Yes, sir," Boshears agreed.

Boshears was the only person present at the time of her violent death by a gunshot.

"You were in a bad place," Egan declared.

"I was grieving, sir," Boshears replied.

"You were in a bad place," Egan repeated.

"I was grieving, sir," Boshears answered again.

Will County's most high-profile murder trial in several years resumes Thursday. The case may go to the jury Friday afternoon to begin deliberations, according to Judge Dave Carlson.

More Patch coverage: Boshears Testifies: 'I Was Freaking Out, I Threw Up'