Trial begins for man accused of killing, entombing girlfriend in his house
William J. Ross was an abusive, controlling man who drank heavily and dated women who rented rooms in his McHenry County area home near the Fox River.
His need to control escalated to lethal levels in fall 2011 when he shot his girlfriend, 49-year-old Jacqueline Schaefer, in the back and head and later entombed her decaying body inside his home until a neighbor found it in November 2013, McHenry County Assistant State's Attorney Dan Wilbrandt told jurors Tuesday as Ross's trial began.
“The defendant killed Jacqueline Schaefer. But then he had a problem. There was now a dead body in his house,” Wilbrandt said.
“He didn't just hide her body but sealed her body in his house.”
Ross, 64, was arrested in Las Vegas in late 2013 and has been held on $5 million bail. He was originally charged with concealment of a homicide and the charges were upgraded to first-degree murder, which carries a penalty of 20 to 60 years in prison.
Wilbrandt said authorities were called to Ross's home Aug. 2, 2007, and Sept. 18, 2007, for domestic disputes and both times found a beaten and bloodied Schaefer. Ross was convicted in the September case of misdemeanor battery, a charge downgraded from domestic battery.
Schaefer dated Ross and rented a room from him from January 2010 through September or October 2011.
Wilbrandt said Ross told neighbors Schaefer moved to Missouri in 2011 while he was on a business trip.
Ross left town and headed West in June 2012, recruiting an ex-girlfriend, also a former neighbor, to maintain the outside of his home but constantly warning her not to go inside.
The caretaker was looking for a space heater in November 2013 when she and her boyfriend pried open the bedroom door and made the gruesome discovery.
The bedroom where Schaefer's remains were found still contained her clothes and other personal effects, such as her journal that had entries from September and early October 2011. The last check she wrote was Sept. 28, 2011, Wilbrandt said.
Wilbrandt said Ross put Schaefer's body into two garbage bags, covered it with a tarp and sealed the bedroom door with caulk, duct tape, screws and wood molding. Authorities found boxes of construction supplies in the home, traced Ross's eight trips to the hardware store within a five-day span in June 2012 and recovered his DNA from the seal to the bedroom door where Schaefer's body was entombed.
Defense attorney Stephen Richards said the state's evidence is insufficient.
Richards noted there were no eyewitnesses to Schaefer's death and Ross did not confess to police.
Richards also said the caretaker didn't like Schaefer and offered inconsistent stories to investigators.
“There was a rivalry between the two of them,” Richards said of the women.
The trial is expected to last through the week.