Prosecutors intend to retry man in 1993 ISU killing

BLOOMINGTON -- Prosecutors said Tuesday they will continue with the investigation and prosecution of a man whose conviction in the 1993 murder of an Illinois State University student was overturned by the state's highest court.

Alan Beaman was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to 50 years in prison in the stabbing and strangling death of his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lockmiller.

The Illinois Supreme Court threw out Beaman's conviction last month, saying prosecutors violated his constitutional right to due process of law. The decision cited evidence that implicated a second man and was not presented at trial, as well as weak evidence against Beaman.

Beaman remains charged with Lockmiller's murder. The office of McLean County State's Attorney William Yoder announced Tuesday it intends to retry him.

"It's kind of like a do-over. We go back to the original charges," said Beaman attorney Karen Daniel of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions.

Daniel said she expects authorities to transfer Beaman soon from Dixon Correctional Center to custody in McLean County where he will be eligible for release on bond.

Beaman has maintained he could not have killed Lockmiller because he was in Rockford the day of the slaying. The 22-year-old Decatur woman was strangled with a clock radio cord and her partially nude body, stabbed in the chest with scissors, was found in an apartment in Normal, 130 miles south of Rockford.

The other suspect -- identified in the court's opinion as John Doe -- had supplied drugs to Lockmiller, who owed him money.

He was trying to renew a romantic relationship with Lockmiller and had been charged with domestic battery involving another woman. The other suspect did not have a solid alibi and was "evasive" in questioning by police, the opinion said.