{"id":14567,"date":"2012-05-14T16:43:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T20:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14567"},"modified":"2012-05-14T16:43:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T20:43:53","slug":"jennifer-hudsons-former-brother-in-law-found-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=14567","title":{"rendered":"Jennifer Hudson\u2019s Former Brother-In-Law Found Guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Chicago jury on Friday convicted Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson’s<\/strong> former brother-in-law of murdering her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in what prosecutors’ described as an act of vengeance by a jilted husband.<\/p>\n

Hudson<\/strong>, who expressed her undisguised disdain for William Balfour<\/strong> when she took the witness stand and who endured weeks of excruciating testimony about the October 2008 killings, was visibly overcome with emotion as the verdict was read. Hudson’s<\/strong> eyes filled with tears and she shook her head and bit her lip. Afterward, she looked over at her sister, Julia Hudson<\/strong>, and smiled.<\/p>\n

Balfour<\/strong>, who faces a mandatory life prison sentence, showed no emotion.<\/p>\n

Jurors deliberated for three days before reaching their verdict against Balfour<\/strong>, a 31-year-old former gang member who was the estranged husband of Hudson’s<\/strong> sister at the time of the triple murders.<\/p>\n

With no surviving witnesses to the Oct. 24, 2008, slayings or fingerprints, prosecutors built a circumstantial case against Balfour by calling 83 witnesses over 11 days of testimony. Witnesses said he threatened to kill the entire family if Julia Hudson<\/strong> spurned him.<\/p>\n

Balfour’s<\/strong> attorneys proposed an alternate theory: that someone else in the crime-ridden neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side targeted the family because of alleged crack-cocaine dealing by Jennifer Hudson’s<\/strong> brother, Jason Hudson<\/strong>. During the 30 minutes in which they called just two witnesses, however, they presented no evidence to support that theory.<\/p>\n

Public defender Amy Thompson<\/strong> said she would appeal the verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Chicago jury on Friday convicted Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson’s former brother-in-law of murdering her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in what prosecutors’ described as an act of vengeance by a jilted husband. Hudson, who expressed her undisguised disdain for William Balfour when she took the witness stand and who endured weeks of excruciating testimony about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}