Three life sentences for killer in Jennifer Hudson family slayings
By Don Babwin
Associated Press
CHICAGO — The man convicted of gunning down the mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew of Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson was sentenced to life in prison Tuesday.
Hudson, who attended every day of William Balfour's trial earlier this year, sat next to her sister at the hearing and at one point dabbed her eyes with a tissue.
The sentencing hearing came a little more than two months after a jury convicted Balfour in the Oct. 24, 2008, shooting deaths of Hudson's 57-year-old mother Darnell Donerson, her 29-year-old brother Jason Hudson and her 7-year-old nephew Julian King. The judge sentenced Balfour to three terms of life in prison plus 120 years on other charges.
"You have the heart of an arctic night," Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns told Balfour. "Your soul is as barren as dark space."
Prosecutors portrayed Balfour, who was married to Hudson's sister Julia Hudson, as a jealous estranged husband who often stalked Julia Hudson's house after he moved out in early 2008. But Balfour's attorneys suggested that someone else committed a crime in the family's three-story house in Englewood on Chicago's South Side.
Balfour faced a mandatory life sentence. Illinois does not have the death penalty.
The only person to give a victim impact statement in court was Gregory King, the father of Hudson's nephew. He told the judge he felt like his heart was ripped out when he found out his son, Julian King, was dead.
"I miss picking Julian up from the school bus," King said. "I miss going on field trips with him ... I miss him spending the night with me and my other children."
Balfour gave a brief statement, offering his condolences to the Hudson family while maintaining his innocence.
"My deepest prayers goes out to Julian King," Balfour said. "I loved him. I still love him. I'm innocent your honor."
Before the sentencing, Burns denied a request for a new trial from Balfour's defense.
+ Top Story
Zoe Saldana has played an alien and a future space traveler — but taking on the role of an actual famous person proved even harder. The 34-year-old star of Avatar and Star Trek plays pianist, singer and activist Nina Simone in the forthcoming biopic Nina.
Mel Brooks, director, producer, writer and actor, is in an elite group as one of the few entertainers to earn all four major entertainment prizes – the Tony, Emmy, Grammy, and Oscar. His career began in television writing for Your Show of Shows and...
Besides detailing the ups-and-downs of the turbulent, 2011 tennis season, this riveting and revealing documentary treats the audience to an intimate look at the close-knit sisters with the help of home movies from their adolescence.
His rise to success with “The Office” and his stand-up prowess quickly brought him to the attention of comedy maven Judd Apatow. Robinson made audiences question their notions of vanity, playing the sensitive bouncer in Knocked Up. He then kept audiences glued to their seats as...
A 17-year-old from Pittsburgh has won the fifth annual August Wilson Monologue Competition, performing a section of the playwright’s “King Hedley II” with powerful skill. Tambi Gxuluwe, who attends West Mifflin Area High School, took the first place trophy Monday night...
Collected and curated by Penn professor and PBS "History Detectives" host Tukufu Zuberi, forms the basis of a provocative new exhibition at the Penn Museum: Black Bodies in Propaganda: The Art of the War Poster, opening at 1:00 pm on June 2, 2013, and running through March 2, 2014.
“Twenty Feet from Stardom” - featuring Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, Tata Vega, Patti Austin among others - spotlights the untold true stories of the backup singers to some of the greatest musical legends of our era. And, because their stories begin most often in church...
In the upcoming science fiction film After Earth, our home planet goes through some serious changes over the next 1,000 years. So it’s fitting that the film’s stars, actor Will Smith and his son Jaden, would take some time to envision what the future of Earth might entail.