The murders of three of singer Jennifer Hudson's family members

The murder of Jason Hudson occurred on October 24, 2008, when 29-year-old Jason Hudson and his 57-year-old mother, Darnell Donerson, were discovered shot to death inside Donerson's home in Chicago, Illinois.

The family of singer Jennifer Hudson, it was also reported that Jennifer's seven-year-old nephew Julian King, the son of her elder sister Julia Hudson, was initially reported missing and an AMBER Alert was issued; Julian King's body was found on October 27 in Chicago's West Side area, in a parked car matching the AMBER Alert description. Autopsy results indicated that Julian King's death was due to "multiple gunshot wounds." A pistol found in a West Side vacant lot was confirmed as the murder weapon by Chicago police.

Investigation

On the day that the bodies of Hudson's mother and brother were discovered, Chicago police took Julia Hudson's estranged husband William Balfour, 27, into custody but did not file charges against him. Balfour was on parole and spent nearly seven years in prison for attempted murder, vehicular hijacking and possession of a stolen vehicle. The Illinois Department of Corrections' records reveal one of Balfour's addresses to be the home where Donerson and Jason Hudson were murdered.

After the Chicago police had held Balfour for the maximum 48 hours allowable without charging him with a crime, he was held by the Illinois Department of Corrections on a parole violation.

At the November 10, 2008 parole hearing, the prisoner review board was told by the Cook County State's Attorney's office that Balfour's current or former girlfriend told investigators she saw Balfour with a gun identical to the murder weapon several days before the murder occurred.

Board chairman Jorge Montes said that although Balfour may have violated other conditions of his parole, including failing to get anger management and substance abuse counseling, the gun allegation alone was sufficient to hold Balfour until a December 3 hearing before the full Illinois Prisoner Review Board.

Montes said that the allegations from the woman included that Balfour had admitted to her that he was involved in the murders, but those allegations were not part of the parole review hearing. Balfour appeared at the hearing without an assigned attorney because he had not been charged with a crime.

Arrest

On December 1, 2008, Balfour was arrested and charged with three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of Donerson, Jason Hudson and King, as well as one count of felony home invasion. At a December 3 court hearing in which Balfour was denied bail, a prosecutor alleged that Balfour had committed the murders out of anger that his estranged wife was dating another man. Balfour's attorney Joshua Kutnick said that his client maintained his innocence in the crimes. Balfour was indicted on December 30. On January 20, 2009, he pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Legacy

In the aftermath of the deaths, Hudson's family announced the creation of the Hudson-King Foundation for Families of Slain Victims, a foundation "to care for the needs of families who have lost relatives to a violent crime," according to a statement released to the press.

Wikipedia.org

Judge gives Balfour 3 life sentences, calls his soul 'barren'

By Jason Meisner - ChicagoTribune.com

July 24, 2012

For the first time since his arrest almost four years ago, William Balfour spoke out briefly in court as he was about to be sentenced Tuesday for the murders of three of singer Jennifer Hudson's family members, offering condolences for the youngest victim.

"My deepest sympathies go to Julian King," he said of Hudson's 7-year-old nephew, the boy with the big smile who looked up to Balfour, his stepfather. "I loved him. I still love him," Balfour said as he looked across the packed courtroom toward his own family, not at the Chicago superstar or her relatives seated across the aisle.

For a moment, the courtroom froze. Balfour's sister, Sensuous, burst into tears and ran out a side door. Across the aisle, Jennifer Hudson and her sister, Julia, Balfour's ex-wife, sat side by side, clutching tissues and dabbing at their eyes.

It was an odd moment in a court hearing that had little suspense. Under Illinois law, Judge Charles Burns had no choice but to impose a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole because Balfour had been convicted of more than one murder.

Many in the courtroom were anticipating either testimony or written statements from Jennifer Hudson and her sister about the horrific impact the crimes have had on their lives. But with the sentence predetermined, the sisters chose to keep their grief private.

The same security detail that had protected the Oscar-winning star and her family throughout the trial whisked them in and out of the courthouse Tuesday through the basement. After the hearing, none of the lawyers involved in the case addressed the throng of news media waiting in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Court Building. Soon after word got out that Jennifer Hudson was gone, the bank of microphones came down and TV crews left.

Even though the outcome was foregone, the judge grew emotional as he imposed the sentence, lashing out at Balfour as he called his claims that he loved Julian "an insult to all of us."

"Your heart is an arctic night, and your soul is as barren as dark space," Burns said to Balfour in a shaky voice.

In the end, the judge imposed a consecutive life sentence for each of the murders as well as 120 years for Balfour's additional convictions for home invasion, possession of a stolen motor vehicle and aggravated kidnapping.

Burns said he was certain Balfour killed Julian because he was in the way and could have been a witness against him. Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, and brother, Jason Hudson, 29, already had been slain in the family's Englewood neighborhood house, prosecutors said.

Julian "shared his life with you. For sure he looked up to you," Burns said. "There is no doubt in my mind he looked up to you as you were putting bullets into his head. I just hope his terror was short-lived."

A Cook County jury convicted Balfour in May of the triple murder. Prosecutors alleged that Balfour was upset over his crumbling marriage to Julia Hudson and jealous that she was seeing another man.

In court Tuesday, Julian's father, Gregory King, sat hunched over on the witness stand and appeared to fight back tears as he recalled the desperate three-day search for the missing boy that ended when his body was found inside Jason Hudson's stolen SUV on the West Side. Like the other two victims, he had been shot to death.

"Instantly it was like a chunk of my heart was ripped out," he said. "I felt hopeless. I was filled with rage for William Balfour, the man who murdered my son."

King also spoke achingly of missing the little things about his son -- picking him up from school and going on field trips with him.

"I even miss his bugging me about SpongeBob SquarePants, a cartoon character he was kind of afraid of," King said.

During the two-hour hearing, prosecutors called several victims from Balfour's past crimes, painting a picture of a man who joined a gang at 15, sold crack cocaine and engaged in other wrongdoing.

Charles Gardner, 48, testified that he caught Balfour stealing his SUV in November 1998 and jumped onto the luggage rack, touching off a wild police chase through several South Side neighborhoods and along the Dan Ryan Expressway at speeds nearing 100 mph as Balfour tried to shake him off the roof.

Jennifer Hudson glanced at her sister as Gardner testified, at one point putting her hand to her temple and shaking her head with a smile of disbelief.

Balfour was captured and eventually pleaded guilty to attempted murder and vehicular hijacking. He spent seven years in prison and was still on parole at the time of the triple murder in October 2008.

Balfour intends to file an appeal. In one issue he raised in seeking a new trial -- denied Tuesday by the judge -- the defense argued that Jennifer Hudson should not have been allowed to testify at trial because she had no direct knowledge of the murders and her celebrity unfairly influenced the jury.

Jennifer Hudson Family Murders: William Balfour Sentenced To Life In Prison In Each Of 3 Slayings

By Don Babwin - HuffingtonPost.com

July 24, 2012

CHICAGO — Struggling to contain his anger, a Chicago judge on Tuesday sentenced Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson's former brother-in-law to life in prison for killing her mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew in what prosecutors say was a fit of jealous rage.

In blistering comments, Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns rejected William Balfour's claims that he was innocent of the crimes.

"You have the heart of an arctic night," Burns told Balfour. "Your soul is as barren as dark space."

Balfour was convicted in May of first-degree murder in the 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.

During the trial, prosecutors portrayed Balfour, who was married to Hudson's sister, Julia Hudson, as a jealous estranged husband who often stalked the Hudson family home after he moved out in early 2008. Balfour's attorneys suggested someone else committed a crime in the family's three-story house in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side.

Burns' harshest comments Tuesday came in regards to Julian's death. The judge's voice cracked as he recounted how terrified the child must have been in the second before he was shot twice in the head.

"I have no doubt in my mind he looked to you when you put bullets in his head," the judge said.

Hudson, who attended every day of Balfour's trial earlier this year, sat next to her sister and dabbed her eyes with a tissue a couple of times during the hearing, including the 10 minutes in which Burns put his own anger into words. She did not make a statement to the judge and left the courtroom without commenting.

Balfour offered his condolences to the Hudson family while maintaining that he didn't kill their relatives.

"My deepest prayers goes out to Julian King. I loved him. I still love him," he said. "I'm innocent, your honor."

Burns, however, said he had no doubt "whatsoever" that Balfour committed the crimes, including the shooting of a little boy "just because he was there."

"I don't think you have one ounce of remorse in your soul; I really don't," Burns said.

Illinois does not have the death penalty, and Balfour faced a mandatory life sentence. The judge sentenced Balfour to three terms of life in prison plus 120 years on other charges, a largely symbolic move but one that underlined the judge's feelings.

The killings occurred the morning after Julia Hudson's birthday, and prosecutors said he became enraged when he stopped by the home and saw a gift of balloons in the house from her new boyfriend.

After his estranged wife left for work on the morning of Oct. 24, 2008, prosecutors said Balfour went back inside the home with a .45-caliber handgun and shot Hudson's mother. He then allegedly shot Hudson's brother twice in the head as he lay in bed.

Prosecutors said Balfour then drove off in Jason Hudson's SUV with Julian, Julia's son, and shot the boy several times in the head as he lay behind a front seat. His body was found in the abandoned vehicle miles away after a three-day search.

"Three days under a tarp," Burns said of the time the boy's body lay in the backseat of the SUV. "Just as if you threw out the trash and left it to rot."

Although the sentence means Balfour will likely die in prison, the judge made a point of telling Balfour the sentences would run one after another, followed by an additional 120 years for his other convictions, including home invasion, aggravated kidnapping and possession of a stolen vehicle.

The only family member to speak was Julian's father, Gregory King, who told of the three days of hoping that his son might be alive only to find out he was dead. He also spoke about what had been taken from him by his son's death, of the everyday moments that make up a relationship between a father and a son.

"I miss picking Julian up from the school bus," King said. "I miss going on field trips with him. ... I even miss his bugging me about Sponge Bob Square Pants, a cartoon character he was kind of afraid of."

Jennifer Hudson chose not to make a statement. During the trial, the Academy Award-winning actress for her role in the 2007 film "Dreamgirls" testified that she had known Balfour since the eighth grade and always disliked him.

Guilty Verdict in Murder Case That Involved Singer’s Family

By Monica Davey - The New York Times

May 11, 2012

CHICAGO — The former brother-in-law of Jennifer Hudson, the singer and actress, was convicted on Friday of murdering her mother, her brother and her young nephew.

With a crush of news and entertainment reporters monitoring her every move, Ms. Hudson, who rose to national fame from one of this city’s toughest neighborhoods, attended the trial, which ran nearly three weeks, and appeared as prosecutors’ first witness, saying she had always disliked William Balfour, now convicted in the case.

“I would tell her over and over again not to marry William,” Ms. Hudson testified about her sister, Julia, who eventually did.

Calling more than 80 witnesses, prosecutors said Mr. Balfour had shot and killed members of the Hudson family in their home in the Englewood neighborhood in October 2008 after growing jealous and possessive of Julia Hudson.

Mr. Balfour’s defense team had characterized the case as largely circumstantial, suggesting that the police hastily focused on Mr. Balfour in a rush to close a case that drew national headlines. Mr. Balfour, 31, faces life in prison.

Prosecutors said Mr. Balfour had been to the Hudson family home on the morning of the shootings, and witnesses said that he had previously been seen with the gun that was used. But no DNA evidence or fingerprints proved Mr. Balfour’s involvement, and defense lawyers told jurors that the work of Ms. Hudson’s brother, Jason — selling drugs, the defense team said — was more likely what led to the shootings.

The jury, six men and six women, deliberated during parts of three days, and had indicated not long before they announced their verdict that they were split. They were sequestered during deliberations in the high-profile case.

The daily machinations of the trial had little to do with Ms. Hudson’s celebrity, which was, nonetheless, ever-present. Reports on the trial noted her tears, her bowed head, her fourth-row seat, her departures from the courtroom and her clothes.

Ms. Hudson drew national attention with appearances on “American Idol” in 2004, then went on to win an Oscar for her role in “Dreamgirls.” In a way, the trial was a reminder of how much her life has been altered.

Ms. Hudson, who testified that she began singing at age 7 at a Baptist church here, no longer lived in her mother’s home in Englewood, a neighborhood troubled by violence and where she said her sister had worked many jobs, including at a Burger King and as a school bus driver. Not long before the deaths, Ms. Hudson told jurors, she had left signed, blank checks for her mother, Darnell Donerson, to pay for items like the family’s gas bill, had bought her sister a computer and had given her brother an S.U.V., apparently the same one that the nephew, Julian King, 7, was later found dead inside.

Chicago police describe finding Jennifer Hudson's nephew, 7, dead in SUV

By Jason Meisner and Stacy St. Clair - ChicagoTribune.com

May 01, 2012

The young boy's left arm protruded from beneath a dirty shower curtain, resting lifeless on the rear seat of the abandoned white SUV.

Amid the empty pop bottles, papers and scattered trash, singer Jennifer Hudson's 7-year-old nephew, Julian King, lay dead with two bullet wounds to the back of his head.

It was an awful end to an already tragic case. As news reporters flocked to the scene and helicopters whirred over the West Side that Monday morning in October 2008, Chicago police detectives began the painstaking task of photographing the boy's body and taking inventory of each bit of evidence found in the vehicle.

That evidence was detailed for jurors Monday as the second week got under way in William Balfour's trial on charges that days earlier he had gunned down Hudson's mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother Jason Hudson because he was upset Hudson's sister, Julia, wanted to divorce him. Prosecutors allege that Balfour then kidnapped Julian and shot him in Jason Hudson's stolen SUV before ditching the vehicle in the 1300 block of South Kolin Avenue.

For several hours Monday, investigators described how they combed through the vehicle, dusting it for fingerprints and using special lights on carpets and upholstery to identify potential evidence.

Balfour's attorneys have said that despite the meticulous forensic investigation, none of the physical evidence — fingerprints, DNA or gunshot residue — connects Balfour to the slayings.

Balfour, who teared up last week as prosecutors showed jurors autopsy photos of Julian on a screen, sat expressionless during Monday's testimony, glancing occasionally toward photos displayed of Julian's bloodied body.

The SUV was found Oct. 27, 2008, three days after the shootings at the Hudson family home in the Englewood neighborhood. The next day, detectives organized about 90 recent Chicago Police Academy graduates into two search parties that scoured the area between the West Side apartment where Balfour was arrested and the street where the SUV was found about two miles away.

Officer Terrence Fowler testified Monday he was only about a block into the search, walking shoulder-to-shoulder with other officers, when he swept his metal baton through some high weeds and garbage and struck an object.

"I heard a clink," Fowler testified. "I used my baton to scatter some debris out of the way, and that's when I observed a gun."

Prosecutors allege that the .45-caliber handgun — found about a block from the SUV containing Julian's body — had been stolen from Jason Hudson just weeks before the killings.

Before testimony began Monday, Judge Charles Burns granted a request by the Tribune and other news organizations to release the 911 recording in which Julia Hudson begged dispatchers for help after she found her mother fatally shot.

The singer's sister had just returned from work and discovered a bullet hole in the front door and her mother on the floor, lifeless and bloody. She ran out of the house and called 911, not realizing her brother also was dead inside the house or that Julian was missing.

In the nearly three-minute call, Julia Hudson can be heard sobbing as an emergency dispatcher initially appeared to downplay the seriousness of what she was saying.

She appeared to realize that her mother may not be the only one in harm's away.

"Where's my brother?" she asked.

Then moments later, she told someone nearby that she can't find her son.

"I don't know where Julian is," she cried.

Neighbor: I saw William Balfour spying on Hudson family home

By Jason Meisner - ChicagoTribune.com

May 01, 2012

A former friend and neighbor of Jennifer Hudson’s family testified today he saw William Balfour spying on the Hudsons' home late one night in the summer before three members of the singer’s family were slain.

Reginald Jones, 55, testified that he was good friends with Hudson’s brother, Jason Hudson, and would often perform odd jobs for the family, including walking their dog, fixing cars and running errands.

Jones, who admitted he had a crack cocaine habit, also bought drugs from Jason Hudson and would occasionally help him sell “dime bags” of crack from the Englewood home.

In the summer of 2008, Jones testified, he was walking back toward the rear of the Hudson home late one night when he was startled by Balfour, who was sitting in the dark on the bottom of the rear stairs underneath the bedroom window of his estranged wife, Julia Hudson, who is Jennifer Hudson’s sister.

“I was walking and somebody says, ‘Reggie, what the hell are you doin’ here?’” Jones testified. “It shocked me.”

Balfour, 30, is accused of gunning down Jason Hudson, 29, mother Darnell Donerson, 57, and 7-year-old Julian King on Oct. 24, 2008, allegedly because he was angry his wife wanted a divorce and was seeing someone new.

In a tense cross-examination, Jones admitted that he would sometimes be at the Hudson home and would open the door for customers looking to buy cocaine from Jason Hudson, who had been shot in the leg in a home invasion a few years earlier and couldn’t get around well.

Jones also testified that on one occasion, he helped Jason Hudson cook cocaine into crack in one of the kitchens in the home.

That testimony helps bolster defense theories that Jason Hudson’s drug business could have led to the murders.

In other testimony today, Maria Wilkes, 17, said Balfour approached her in an Englewood park in the summer of 2008 and started spouting off about his wife and how she was being unfaithful.

“He was talking to me about his wife and how she was cheating on him,” said Wilkes, who was 13 years old at the time. “He was just saying how she got a new boyfriend and how he didn’t want to leave her…He said he was going to have to deal with it.”

Wilkes, who lived in the neighborhood but did not known Balfour well, said she was walking down Yale Avenue later that summer and overheard an argument between Balfour and Julia Hudson outside on the street.

“I heard him tell her that if she was giong to call the police, he would kill her and her family,” Wilkes said.

Under cross-examination by Balfour’s attorney, Edward Koziboski, Wilkes said she never told her story to police and only divulged it when prosecutors approached her last July. She also said she did not hear anything that Julia Hudson said during the alleged argument.

Actress Takes Stand at Trial in the Killings of Relatives

By Monica Davey - The New York Times

April 23, 2012

CHICAGO — Preparations for the arrival of Jennifer Hudson, the singer and actress and beloved product of Chicago, at this city’s criminal courthouse were elaborate and months in the works: a private entrance was readied, a crush of news and entertainment reporters were required to sign pledges to abide by stringent rules of courtroom decorum and potential jurors were quizzed about their knowledge of “American Idol” and “Dreamgirls.”

But when Ms. Hudson appeared, at last, in a courtroom on Monday, the dizziness over her celebrated rise to stardom quickly gave way to the bleak circumstances that had brought her — the shooting deaths of her 7-year-old nephew, her brother and her mother in one of Chicago’s grittiest South Side neighborhoods, Englewood. Glamour was wiped away.

“Yes, that’s my mommy,” Ms. Hudson testified on Monday afternoon, when asked to look at a photograph. Ms. Hudson told jurors that she had slept in a bed with her mother until she was 16 years old. Even as an adult, she said, she communicated with her mother every day, often by text messages that began arriving early in the morning. Nothing arrived one morning in October 2008, Ms. Hudson testified, in her first hint that something was wrong.

Ms. Hudson was the first prosecution witness called in a murder trial against William Balfour, her former brother-in-law, who prosecutors say shot Ms. Hudson’s family members in 2008 after growing jealous and possessive of his wife, Julia Hudson, Ms. Hudson’s sister.

Jennifer Hudson, who first drew national attention with appearances on “American Idol” in 2004 and went on to win an Oscar for her role as the singer Effie in “Dreamgirls,” was undeniably the most anticipated participant in this trial. Until the moment she stepped up to the witness stand, there was speculation about when and whether she would appear.

In the end, she answered questions for only about 30 minutes, the judge pausing to offer her time to compose herself and urging her, at one point, to speak up and slow down. Ms. Hudson said she had been traveling, in Florida, in 2008 when her family members were killed, but quickly flew home, and went to the Cook County medical examiner’s office to identify her mother, Darnell Donerson, and her brother, Jason Hudson, both of whom were found inside the family home, as well as a young nephew, Julian King, who was later found inside an S.U.V. that was taken from the home.

Mr. Balfour, who went to grade school with Ms. Hudson and who could face life in prison, has pleaded not guilty. In an opening statement on Monday, his lawyer suggested that Ms. Hudson’s prominence had left law enforcement authorities feeling special pressure to solve the case quickly, leading them to focus on Mr. Balfour right away, despite a lack of physical evidence against him.

But a prosecutor said Mr. Balfour, who had been estranged from Julia Hudson, had repeatedly threatened her, even pledging that he would kill her family first, then her. The lawyers on both sides seemed to agree about only one thing — a grim picture of lives in Englewood, a neighborhood where the drug trade seemed to thrive and where gunshots were heard but sometimes ignored because they were too ordinary.

Jennifer Hudson told jurors she had not liked Mr. Balfour ever, not in the sixth-grade class they attended together in Englewood and not later. “None of us wanted her to marry him,” she said of her sister.

“I tried to keep my distance with William any chance I got,” Jennifer Hudson told the jurors. “Where he was, I tried not to be.”

Many faces of William Balfour

By Chicago Tribune

October 28, 2008

During his brief marriage to Julia Hudson, William Balfour seemed to embrace the role of stepdad.

He declared himself a "proud parent" on MySpace and decorated his page with photos of a smiling Julian King. The boy also is mentioned in a seven-line autobiography Balfour wrote for the social networking site.

On their Englewood block, the two often could be seen walking to the park or enjoying barbecues on the front lawn. Balfour, 27, helped support his fledgling family with money he earned as a Cosi baker and frequently indulged his stepson with boys-only trips to Popeyes and McDonald's, neighbors say.

Balfour's affection seemed so genuine that friends and relatives struggle to reconcile the involved stepfather with the man authorities call a "person of interest" in the 7-year-old boy's homicide. Authorities believe Julian's shooting death is linked to the Friday slayings of his grandmother, Darnell Donerson, and his uncle, Jason Hudson.

"The guy they're talking about is nothing like the guy I knew," neighbor Ante Moore said. "I'm not saying he was a saint, but I do know that he was trying to turn his life around."

Police named Balfour as a suspect in an Amber Alert released Friday. He currently is at Statesville Correctional Center in Joliet; authorities say he violated his parole by becoming a murder suspect.

Balfour's criminal rap sheet dates back at least a decade. Court records show Balfour was arrested in 1998 after police spotted him driving a stolen vehicle. They tried to pull him over near the 6900 block of South Yale Avenue -- about a block from the Hudson family home -- but Balfour stopped the car and fled, according to court records.

Balfour was out on bond when a man saw Balfour breaking into his brand-new Chevrolet Suburban on Nov. 29, 1998, and ran outside to stop him, court records show. Balfour, then 17, drove off with the man hanging from the roof rack.

As police followed, Balfour drove through alleys, front yards, through a police barricade and onto the Dan Ryan Expressway -- all with the victim clinging to the vehicle, records indicate. He eventually crashed into a telephone pole and fled.

The victim suffered burns from fallen electrical wires as well as other injuries.

Balfour was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to attempted murder and car hijacking in September 1999. He was released in May 2006, returned to the neighborhood where he grew up and reconnected with Julia Hudson, one of the three Hudson siblings he had known while attending Yale Elementary School.

She was a single mother who drove a school bus, lived with her mother and depended on her relatives to help care for Julian. Balfour, who calls himself "Flex" for his chiseled physique, was smitten with the Rubenesque Hudson, who is four years his senior, his mother said.

"He was in love with Julia," Michele Balfour said. "And Julia loved him."