Former Illinois prosecutor charged with murder out of jail

CARTHAGE, Ill. (AP) - A former Illinois prosecutor who faces a second murder trial in the death of his first wife was released from jail Tuesday after nearly two years behind bars.

Curtis Lovelace, the former Adams County assistant state's attorney charged with first-degree murder of 38-year-old Cory Lovelace on Valentine's Day 2006, walked out of the Hancock County Jail after embracing his second wife, Christine, and sons Larson and Lincoln.

A tearful Lovelace did not make a statement to reporters, but Christine Lovelace said the family wanted privacy.

"I think we're going to go home right now and be together and try to settle in to the day," she said.

Circuit Judge Bob Hardwick Jr. lowered Lovelace's bond from $5 million to $3.5 million on Monday and friends posted the $350,000 needed for his release.

Lovelace's release was delayed a day until he could be fitted with a GPS ankle monitor. He will be under home confinement except to go to church on Sundays and for weekly meetings with a monitoring company representative.

Lovelace faces an Oct. 24 start of his second trial after the first ended with a deadlocked jury.

Lovelace has said he found his first 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.