Opening statements given in ex-Illinois prosecutor's trial

QUINCY, Ill. (AP) - The trial of a former Illinois prosecutor accused of killing his wife on Valentine's Day in 2006 got underway Wednesday with a special prosecutor showing photos of the scene where the woman died.

Curtis Lovelace, a former star University of Illinois football player, has pleaded not guilty in the death of 38-year-old Cory Lovelace.

"(Cory) is going to tell you through her own body that she was murdered," prosecutor Ed Parkinson said as he showed the 10-woman, two-man jury photos of Cory Lovelace lying dead on a bed in the couple's second-floor bedroom. Parkinson is arguing the case because Curtis Lovelace spent seven years as an assistant state's attorney in Adams County.

In his opening statement, defense attorney Jeff Page told jurors the victim died of natural causes, saying Curtis Lovelace last saw his wife alive, when he helped her upstairs to their bedroom before he took the couple's three oldest children to school. He said jurors would have to discount testimony from the Lovelace's school-age children if they were to convict him. Page said all three children told police that they saw their mother alive before they went to school.

"The truth rests with the children," Page said.

An initial autopsy on Lovelace's body was inconclusive, but subsequent tests of the cremated remains and photographic evidence determined the mother of four died from suffocation.

One of the eight witnesses testifying Wednesday was Cory Lovelace's mother, Martha Didriksen. She said she knew that her daughter and son-in-law were having problems in their marriage before Cory Lovelace's death.

She recounted how Curtis Lovelace turned up at her house after he found his wife dead, bringing the couple's then-4-year-old son with him.

"He knocked on the door and handed me Larson," Didriksen said. "He said, 'Cory's dead.' And then he left. He just walked across the porch and walked off."

Testimony is expected to continue Thursday.

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Information from: The Quincy Herald-Whig, http://www.whig.com