Hit Wife in Head With Hammer + Wife Dies = 15 Months

The Romeoville Hammer Man has a prison out-date, and it’s for less than a year and three months from the day he first stepped into Stateville Correctional Center.

John Sadler, 72, is due to be paroled Aug. 17, 2016. He got to Stateville on May 28 after pleading guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and concealing a homicide.

Sadler, a retired accountant, at first faced murder charges after the cops found the 10-day-old corpse of his wife, Carol Sadler, inside their Benzie Circle home in July 2010. He was jailed following the grisly discovery and held on a $3 million bond.

But even though he reportedly admitted to police that he hit his 66-year-old wife in the head with a hammer, prosecutors reduced the charges after an autopsy revealed Carol Sadler actually died of a heart attack and not her head wound. She apparently suffered the heart attack mere moments before her husband bludgeoned her with the hammer.

John Sadler’s bond was reduced to $300,000. He promptly posted it and was released from custody.

John Sadler had shot down an earlier deal offered by prosecutors, much to the chagrin of his daughter. The anguished woman shouted from the courtroom gallery at John Sadler, telling him, “Take the deal, dad! My God, take the deal!”

John Sadler received credit for the more than three months he served in the Will County jail when not free on bond and the time was taken off his prison sentence.