A Wisconsin man was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole after a second conviction for suffocating and dousing his wife with antifreeze in 1998. Mark Jensen’s penalty came a quarter later The police show him a letter His wife left hints that she was going to kill him.
Jensen, 63, a Kenosha County judge, was convicted by a jury in February of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his wife, Julie Jensen.
Prosecutors allege he poisoned Julie Jensen with antifreeze and later drugged her with sleeping pills before strangling her to death in their Pleasant Prairie home.
Sean Krajczyk/The Kenosha News via AP, Poole
Jensen has maintained her innocence, with her lawyers arguing that Julie Jensen was depressed and killed herself after framing her husband.
At the sentencing hearing, Julie Jensen’s family asked the judge to give Mark Jensen the maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, CBS affiliate WDJT-TV reported.
“I respectfully ask the court today to show no mercy to Mark Jensen,” Paul Griffin, a brother of Julie Jensen, said in his witness statement. “Why you may ask? Because he showed no kindness to his wife, my sister, Julie Jensen.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Julie Jensen has suffered for a long time,” Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Milisauskas said during Friday’s sentencing.
“He could have divorced her, separated, whatever, but he chose not to. What he chose to do tortured him for a long time,” Milisauskas said, according to WISN-TV.
Jensen was first convicted of his wife’s murder in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
But a Kenosha County judge upheld Jensen’s first conviction in April 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled he deserved a new trial. The court found that his wife had written a letter accusing him of not being able to use the prosecution if anything happened to him.
In 2008, “48 Hours” covered the case. The episode includes dramatic video of police questioning Jensen about a letter Julie wrote two weeks before her death that she suspected was going to kill her. Watch the video below.
Letter: Mark Jensen Interrogation by CBS News on YouTube
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