Dad out of prison after 14 year for soliciting murder of wife; she was killed amid "bitter custody battle" (Chicago, Illinois)

Dad JAMES J. KELLY was convicted in 1995 in the murder of his wife, the mother of their 3 children. There were allegations of domestic violence during the marriage, and "child custody issues" after the divorce (one always seems to go with the other, like peanut butter and jelly). He is now out on parole, and his now adult children don't want to have anything to do with him. I'm sure the FRs would say that Dad was unfairly "alienated"--but then they just don't seem to get that somebody might not like you very much if you ram a butcher knife through their mother, yes?

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=329890

'You blink, and it's here:' After 14 years, James Kelly free
Convicted of soliciting Naperville ex-wife's slaying
By Christy Gutowski Daily Herald StaffContact writer

After 14 years in prison, James J. Kelly Jr. is a free man.

Kelly is expected to be paroled Monday after serving part of a 35-year term for soliciting the murder of his ex-wife, Jayne, found stabbed in her Naperville townhouse Sept. 3, 1991, amid a bitter custody battle.

Now 63, Kelly likely will return to Chicago to reside with his longtime girlfriend. He must wear an electronic-monitoring device while serving three years of supervised release. He also is barred from having contact with his three children, now grown, who haven't spoken to their father in years.

After Jayne Kelly died, her brother Roger Carlson and his wife, Jane, won custody and began raising the kids as their own.

Kelly's release opens wounds anew.

"The children have no interest in hearing anything he has to say," Jane Carlson said. "They know he's being paroled. We thought it was so far away. Then you blink, and it's here."

A shocking crime

They appeared to have it all.

Kelly worked his way up the corporate ladder to senior vice president for the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm. He was driven, often working 14-hour days, and played just as hard with a passion for skiing and travel.

Jayne Carlson grew up in south suburban South Holland. She was a beautiful blond model, nine years his junior. The couple met in 1974 at a Rush Street tavern, married Nov. 8, 1975, and raised their children - Kristin, Kimberly and their youngest, Ryan - on the city's North Side.

But the marriage eventually failed.

They divorced in early 1988, amid dualing allegations of physical abuse, but continued battling over alimony and child custody issues. The proceedings were so acrimonious a judge described it in court as "the custody war of the century, worse than 'The War of the Roses.' "

Jayne Kelly moved into a Naperville townhouse on the 400 block of Orleans Avenue with the children and began a new life. Her family described her as a devoted mother who worked in commercial interior design. She died at 38.

It was her middle child, Kimberly, then 12, who discovered her mother's body, a butcher knife stuck in her chest so deep that it exited her back and became embedded in the wooden foyer floor.

James Kelly emerged as an immediate suspect in a crime that sparked a media fervor. Despite a lack of physical evidence, prosecutors charged him two weeks later with trying to hire three hitmen, including a cousin, Billy Kelly, in 1990. Prosecutors said Kelly did the deed himself after the others didn't follow through.

A DuPage County judge granted Kelly's request that his solicitation and murder charges be tried separately. DuPage State's Attorney Joseph Birkett, then the criminal chief, was on the Kelly prosecution team.

He said a state appeals court dealt the prosecution a difficult blow when it barred them in the murder case from using a secretly taped conversation between James and Billy Kelly, who was cooperating with police, three days after Jayne died. The tape was allowed only in the solicitation trial.

On the tape, James Kelly denied 17 times that he killed his ex-wife but, in a hushed voice, he told his cousin not to say anything to police because they didn't know anything about him or the other men.

"He should have been tried and convicted of the murder," Birkett said. "To this day, I cannot understand that (appellate court) ruling. I'm still baffled by it."

Prosecutors first pursued the solicitation case. After four years of legal maneuvering, with about 100 pretrial motions. that trial opened June 9, 1995.

All three children testified. They were 8, 12 and 15 when they lost their mother.

The oldest, Kristin Kelly, told the jury her mother, about two weeks before the murder, asked Kristin who she wanted to live with because she didn't have a will and was convinced James Kelly was plotting her death.

DuPage Circuit Judge Thomas E. Callum called a short recess on the trial's third day when Kimberly Kelly broke down and cried while recalling the sight of her slain mother after the girl returned home from school.

"There was blood everywhere," she told jurors. "I threw my bag and my keys down and I left. I ran to a neighbor's house to call the police, but nobody was there."

After she checked three other houses, another neighbor let her in. "I told her my mom had been hurt and she called police."

James Kelly has always maintained his innocence. He told jurors he tracked down Billy Kelly in April 1990 as part of his desire to contact long-lost relatives. The two last saw each other 28 years earlier.

He admitted taking part in murder-for-hire discussions, which he said were his cousin's idea, but Kelly said he never took any of it seriously. Prosecutors said Kelly called his cousin 73 times between April and December 1990.

After a nearly three-week trial ending June 28, 1995, the jury deliberated 8.5 hours during two days before convicting Kelly of soliciting the murder.

James Kelly didn't flinch.

A free man

Judge Callum sentenced Kelly to 35 years on Aug. 22, 1995.

Prosecutors then dropped the murder charge, given the earlier appellate decision that weakened their case. Meanwhile, Kelly vowed to continue his fight to clear his name.

"This is something I'll never accept," he told the Daily Herald in 1995. "There's absolutely more fight in me."

And there was. In the next several years, Kelly argued more than 100 motions on appeal alleging some 462 claims of trial errors. He never won a new trial.

By the time of his conviction, Kelly had served three years in the county jail. Beside that credit, he also was eligible for parole after serving half the prison term because it was before enactment of Illinois' tough truth-in-sentencing law for violent crimes.

Jane Carlson, who helped raise the Kelly children, remains protective of them and asked that details of their lives remain private. She said they all are "doing fine," now 33, 30 and 26, and forever will mourn the loss of their mother.

James Kelly declined a recent Daily Herald request to be interviewed, as did the lawyer girlfriend with whom he will live after his release from the Dixon Correctional Center. In a Sept. 1 handwritten response, Kelly seemed content to remain out of the headlines he once dominated.
"I think it is best that I keep a low profile upon release."