Jurors hear opening statements in Shadwick King case

ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – A 12-member jury Tuesday afternoon heard attorneys' opening statements and testimony from three witnesses during the second day of a Geneva murder trial.

Shadwick King, 47, was indicted on two counts of first-degree murder in the July 6 death of his wife, Kathleen. The courtroom was standing-room only during opening statements, which lasted about 70 minutes.

King killed his wife, changed her clothes and left her body on Union Pacific railroad tracks near their Geneva home, Assistant State’s Attorney Greg Sams said to the jury.

“That man sitting right there, Shadwick King … strangled to death his wife, Kathleen King,” Sams said, fully extending his left arm to point a finger at King.

Sams immediately was followed by King’s attorney, Kane County Public Defender Kelli Childress.

Family members describe King as a gentle giant who would walk away from confrontations, Childress said.

“Shadwick King did not murder his wife,” Childress said to the jury. “No one murdered his wife. Kathleen King did not die by homicide.”

Sams and Childress both addressed a text message-heavy relationship that Kathleen King had with a man from Boston that she met in spring 2014 while at military training in Texas.

From 11:30 p.m. July 5 to about 2 a.m. July 6 Shadwick and Kathleen King were at The Dam Bar and Grill in downtown Geneva, Sams said. Surveillance footage from the bar showed Kathleen King texting on her phone multiple times during the evening.

Kathleen King was sending messages to the Boston man, and at one point, asked him to marry her, Sams said.

Later that night, Shadwick King looked at her phone, saw the messages and texted “Stay away from my wife.” Kathleen King later contacted the man through Facebook at about 5:15 a.m. July 6 and told him if he received strange messages, it was because her husband had her phone.

Kathleen King bought an iPhone after her husband threw her previous phone in a small lake or pond once he found out about the man a few days after she came back from training, Sams said. He also checked the Boston man’s Facebook profile and checked his wife’s bank activity often on a desktop computer at their home in the weeks following her return from training.

Sams told the jury he was not going to ask them to like everything Kathleen King did.

“The choices that she made does not mean she needed to be killed,” Sams said of Kathleen King.

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A female later identified as Kathleen King was spotted at about 6:39 a.m. July 6 on the southernmost Union Pacific Railway tracks south of Esping Park, 227 Briar Lane in Geneva by a train operator on another track.

Kathleen King’s head lay against the tracks, and police noted her body was in an awkward position, Sams said. Her clothes also appeared to be put on hastily, and her iPhone was found upright near her body against the railroad tracks, he said.

Sams said Shadwick King appeared apathetic when talking about his wife’s text messages with the other man during police questioning, but Childress said King cried multiple times during the questioning.

“The evidence will show that Shad King never laid a harmful hand on his wife,” Childress said to the jury.

Childress wrote on a large dry erase board “Police officers tend to twist theories into facts” and attributed the quote to Mark Safarik, the criminal profiler the prosecution brought on to King’s case. Safarik did not review all the evidence gathered in the case, Childress said.

Childress also said the forensic pathologist who conducted Kathleen King’s autopsy noted she died of asphyxia but did not specify a cause because the pathologist simply did not know how she asphyxiated.

The second day of the Shadwick King trial ended with the jury hearing from the first three witnesses – Geneva Police Sgt. George Carbray and two Union Pacific engineers.

A few women in the gallery began to cry when a few images of Kathleen King’s body were shown on TV monitors located throughout the courtroom. Shadwick King, wearing a striped button-down shirt on Tuesday, also appeared upset by the images.

Prosecutors objected multiple times to the defense team’s multiple attempts to reference an apparent report by Union Pacific personnel that Kathleen King still might have been breathing when she was found on the tracks.

Carbray said he asked dispatchers to send an EMS to the scene, but did not perform lifesaving measures because he could not detect a pulse, and she appeared to have been dead for some time.

The third day of King’s trial is scheduled to resume at 9 a.m. today.