Mark Jensen found guilty of killing his wife in 1998
KENOSHA COUNTY, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Mark Jensen, convicted of poisoning and suffocating his wife in Pleasant Prairie, was found guilty on Wednesday, Feb. 1.
Jensen was accused of the murder which happened in 1998. Prosecutors argued during the first trial in 2008 that Jensen poisoned his wife, Julie Jensen, with antifreeze, Ambien and suffocation. A key piece of evidence at the first trial was a letter Julie wrote and delivered to a friend saying if they found her dead, she suspected her husband did it.
After appeals and court rulings going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the conviction was vacated, and a new trial ordered without including the letter as evidence.
In court on Wednesday, Feb. 1, a jury found Jensen guilty of first-degree intentional homicide.
While the defense didn't speak to media after the trial, prosecutors did.
They say they're appreciative to the jury for making what they say is the right decision, quickly.
"We, the jury, find the defendant, Mark D. Jensen, guilty of intentional homicide of the first degree as charged," read the verdict.
"Mark Jensen is one of the most brutally cold-blooded people I've ever seen in my life," said Special Prosecutor Bob Jambois, minutes after the verdict. "To lay next to his wife at night as she's gasping for breath, gasping to live, but trying to live as he then listens to her, waiting for her to die."
He says they're glad to have this conviction without using Julie's letter.
That letter, given to a neighbor in the weeks ahead of her death, said Mark should be a prime suspect if anything happened to her.
Courts decided this letter was hearsay and couldn't be used as evidence, leading to this retrial.
"I believe that Wisconsin court of Wisconsin Supreme Court got this issue wrong," said Jambois, with a copy of Julie's letter in hand. "I think victims have a right to be heard in court."
Jambois praised the defense in the case, saying if and when Jensen tries to appeal, he won't be able to bring up the letter or say he was poorly represented.
"He's certainly not going to have that argument in this case. So I don't know what he'd appeal on, but he probably will find something," said Jambois.
Jambois thanked Kenosha County Deputy District Attorney Carli McNeill who he worked with for months on the trial.
She thanked all the people who worked on the trial behind the scenes, but also Jambois and his wife, Bev.
"Bob Jambois had absolutely no obligation to come back and to devote so much of his life and his time to this trial," said Jambois.
Jambois says he thinks Mark Jensen will face life in prison once again.
The judge set the sentencing for April 14th at 10 AM.