Judge orders bond reduction in Lovelace murder case

VIRGINIA, Ill. (AP) - A former Illinois prosecutor who faces a second murder trial in his wife's 2014 death is expected to be released from jail after a judge reduced his bond Monday and friends posted a portion of it.

Judge Bob Hardwick lowered the $5 million bond for former Adams County assistant state's attorney Curtis Lovelace to $3.5 million. Lovelace has been behind bars since he was charged nearly two years ago with first-degree murder in the suffocation death of his 38-year-old wife, Cory Lovelace, on Valentine's Day 2006.

Friends of Lovelace's, Rich and Libby Herr, posted 10 percent of the bond, or $350,000, The Quincy Herald-Whig reported (http://bit.ly/1r9Y7Cg). Lovelace will be monitored by GPS while free.

Lovelace was returned to the Hancock County Jail after Monday afternoon's hearing. The GPS monitoring system will not be placed on Lovelace until Tuesday at the earliest, and it takes time for that paperwork to be processed.

Lovelace's first trial in Adams County, where he was once an assistant state's attorney, lasted two weeks, ending when the jury foreman said they were deadlocked.

Lovelace said he found his wife dead in bed after dropping off three of the couple's children at school.

An initial autopsy was inconclusive, but prosecutors argued subsequent forensic tests and photographic evidence determined the mother of four died from suffocation.

Two of the couple's sons, now teenagers, testified they saw their mother alive the morning of her death, a time frame that contradicted the state's theory that Lovelace used a pillow to kill his wife in her sleep. But their older sister testified she was not certain she saw their mother before school.

Lovelace was arrested in 2014 after a Quincy detective took a fresh look at the case.

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