Illinois, fmr. suburban attny, school board member guilty of killing wife in '73, faked car crash

[appalachiablue]

CHICAGO - Donnie Rudd, the former northwest suburban lawyer and school board member, has been found guilty of killing his second wife 45 years ago.

Rudd, now 76, was convicted Monday of first-degree murder after a weeklong trial in Cook County and about three hours of jury deliberations.

Prosecutors said Rudd staged Noreen Kumeta Rudd's death to look like a car accident and that authorities at the time believed him because he had the credentials of an upstanding citizen.

But after getting away with the crime for more than four decades, Rudd is now likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. Having been out of jail on a $400,000 cash bond, Rudd was expected to be retaken into custody Monday. He showed no reaction when the verdict was announced.

In closing arguments earlier Monday, prosecutors said Rudd chose a dark and secluded road in Barrington Hills to stage the crash that September evening in 1973.

"The defendant made it look like an accident, and he fooled a lot people," Assistant State's Attorney Maria McCarthy told jurors just before they began deliberating the case...More...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/illinois-man-guilty-of-killing-wife-in-73-making-it-look-like-car-crash/ar-AAzuHaR?li=BBnbfcL

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Wha?

Sounds like he killed more than one. The old wheelchair in the courtroom bit. Almost as cheesey as Bill Cosby suddenly becoming blind. Groan.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. No statute of limitations, eh?

Musta been a hell of a shock to the guy at this late date.

story did not really say why they re-opened the case after so many years.

[Cha]

4. Yeah, I'm always interested too.. in all the details.. I found this..

"Police took another look at the case after reviewing the 1991 unsolved murder of Loretta Tabak-Bodtke in her Arlington Heights home.

Tabak-Bodtke was a legal client of Rudd's and had threatened to report him to the state's attorney disciplinary board over a financial dispute. Rudd was later disbarred amid several complaints by clients that he engaged in unethical practices.

Also said Noreen was killed less than a month after they were married.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Hmmm...maybe 2 killings, then.

Wonder how much money Noreen had.

[Cha]

10. 19 years old! And-Or what

she did to bug him so BAD!

[kcr]

8. There was another similar case I read about recently

Where the suspicious death of a second wife caused the reopening of the first case and got the man convicted of both murders. The first wife died when he was changing a tire and the car fell on her, crushing her. No one questioned why his wife was under there at the time, apparently. The second one fell off a cliff when they went hiking in the Rockies. He forgot to throw away the trail map with the x marking the spot where she fell. He had been plotting to kill his sister-in-law as well. All for insurance money.

[Cha]

11. So stupid to even think about

killing someone.

[Princess Turandot]

5. They reopened a 1990 cold case murder of another woman connected with Rudd...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/06/28/a-car-crash-killed-a-newlywed-in-1973-now-police-say-she-was-murdered-by-the-groom/?utm_term=.47ef8ea235bf

In 1990, Rudd began representing an interior designer named Lauretta Tabak-Bodtke in a business dispute. Again, the attorney allegedly told his client that he had won her a six-figure judgment. According to the Daily Herald, when the money didn’t end up in the interior designer’s account, she threatened to lodge an official complaint against Rudd.

On April 4, 1991, Tabak-Bodtke, the same interior designer, was found shot to death in her townhouse outside Chicago. There were no signs of a break-in. Neighbors reportedly told police they saw a car with “MR CONDO” vanity plates {Rudd's car had that vanity plate} at the victim’s house on the day of her death. No charges were ever filed, however.
...
“You killed her, but part of her is still here, and that’s me,” she {Tabak-Bodtke's daughter Stephanie} told Rudd, according to the Chronicle. “I’m not going to give up.”

That pressure paid off. In 2013, Illinois police reopened the 1991 shooting. That inquiry, however, led to questions about the 1973 car crash. Noreen’s body was exhumed as part of the investigation.

The exhumation was a key step. The victim had been pronounced dead upon arrival in the ER of a spine fracture caused by the accident: no x-rays were taken and no autopsy was done at the time. The medical examiner doing the autopsy on her remains determined that she had died from multiple blows to the head that were not consistent with the auto accident.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. thank you!

I can see A&E adding this to their crime series.

[RhodeIslandOne]

9. I thought the old saying was....

“There’s no statue of limitations on murder”

[unc70]

3. A couple more unsolved murders

Seems like a lot of suspicious deaths near him. Feel like we need more details than this article.