Sentencing delayed in 2014 Geneva murder; new trial requested
The sentencing for Shadwick King, convicted of murdering his wife and dumping her body on the Union Pacific tracks last July, has been moved from next week to Aug. 10.
King, 47, faces 20 to 60 years in prison for Geneva's first murder since 1975.
Meanwhile, Kane County Public Defender Kelli Childress has filed a lengthy motion for a new trial, a move that is seldom granted but a necessary procedural step for King's appeal.
After a two-week trial, a jury convicted King on March 16 of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Kathleen, 33.
During the trial, prosecutors argued that King strangled her in a jealous rage after she began an emotional affair with a Massachusetts man she met in U.S. Army training in spring 2014.
Prosecutors argued that King dumped her body on the railroad tracks in an attempt to make it look like she was jogging.
Prosecutors presented numerous text messages, computer searches and Facebook interactions, along with King's police interviews to show he knew about this wife's affair, lied to police about it and what he did the day she was found.
In that trial, Childress unsuccessfully argued that Kathleen's intoxication, stress and lack of sleep triggered a heart condition that killed her.
Childress' motion disputes numerous decisions made before and during the trial; among them, she objected to prosecutors' use of testimony from a criminal profiler and testimony from the oldest of the Kings' three children, who said his parents fought over Kathleen's flirting.
Childress also argues Judge James Hallock erred when he did not allow the jury to visit the murder scene. She also said trial strategy from Assistant State's Attorney Greg Sams to save the majority of his closing argument for the rebuttal stage was prejudicial to King.
King is being held at the Kane County jail without bail and must serve 100 percent of his sentence without the chance of early release.