Jury Deliberates Jeremy Boshears' Murder Charges

Joliet IL

29 April, 2022

2:53 PM

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JOLIET, IL — After three-and-a-half hours of deliberations Friday afternoon in the first-degree murder case against Joliet Outlaw Jeremy Boshears, Will County Judge Dave Carlson sent the jury home for the weekend at 4 p.m. The jury was told to report back to the Will County Courthouse at 8:45 a.m. Monday to resume deliberations. The judge opted to send the jury home after learning that one of the jurors had a teenager scheduled to have a high school prom Friday night. Before calling the jury into his courtroom to dismiss them for the weekend, Judge Carlson told the courtroom, including Boshears, "I think they're going to want to come back on Monday ... they're still working through a lot." Boshears faces multiple counts of first-degree murder and a felony charge of concealing a homicidal death. During Friday's closing arguments, Assistant Will County State's Attorney Steven Platek told jurors that during the week of Nov. 13, 2017, the murder defendant was obsessed with actions that were "self-serving." Boshears went out of his way "to hide things and move evidence." That kind of behavior is consistent "with him killing her and having a guilty mind," Platek argued. "The circumstances of this case show that he is guilty, and I ask you find him guilty on all counts." The final arguments presented by Bretz went much longer than the two chances at arguments put forth by Platek and Assistant State's Attorney Tom Bahar. Prosecutors get two chances to make final arguments, while the defense only gets one chance to address the jurors. Prosecutors argue that Jeremy Boshears pulled out his loaded gun and fatally shot Katie Kearns after discovering she was getting several text messages from her ex-boyfriend Danny Brandt that were "sexual in nature." John Ferak/Patch Bretz told the jury that the following events transpired leading to what he said was the tragic self-inflicted gunshot wound of Kearns inside the Joliet Outlaws clubhouse: Boshears told his new girlfriend he needed to shut down the club, so he could get some sleep before attending the 21-gun salute funeral of his uncle, a man Boshears considered his "father figure."Kearns wanted to accompany Boshears to the funeral service at Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery. Boshears told her that could not happen, because he was still married, he had a family.Kearns became extremely upset, screaming, "I thought you were different. Am I just a side piece? You're a piece of shit."During their two-week-long intimate romance, Kearns considered Boshears her "Prince Charming, the guy she had been looking for." Now, the "fairy tale was just completely unraveled," Bretz told the jury. During Friday's long closing argument, defense attorney Chuck Bretz told jurors that the cover up was wrong, lying to the police was wrong, but Jeremy Boshears did not commit a first-degree murder, and he did not conceal a homicidal death. John Ferak/Patch During her final minutes alive, Kearns "was jacked up out of her mind on drugs and alcohol" sleeping pills, mood stabilizers and cocaine, Bretz told the jury. "She's wasted," Bretz hollered. "Again, I'm not saying this is a suicide," Bretz emphasized. Rather, Kearns' decision to grab Colby O'Neal's gun from behind the bar at the Joliet Outlaws was part of her well-documented medical history of psychiatric problems such as irrational and reckless behavior, mood swings, bipolar disorder and a "troubled history of cutting herself," Bretz stressed. After Kearns died, Boshears immediately called O'Neal, screaming at him to return because he left his gun and Kearns just shot herself, according to Bretz. "The cover-up was wrong," Bretz told the jury. "Lying to the police was wrong Bretz reminded the jury that Boshears testified in his own defense, admitting he was responsible for driving Kearns' body to the farm 60 miles away belonging to fellow Joliet Outlaw, Ron Keagle. Boshears also helped clean up the death scene, covering the bullet hole in the ceiling with a smoke detector that Boshears bought at the Walmart in New Lenox. Boshears sent O'Neal to the Sunshine Food Mart to purchase a jug of bleacher to remove all the remaining blood spatter and stains after Kearns had died. "I told you, Jeremy had concealed a death," Bretz reminded the jury. "He obstructed justice, but that's not what he's charged with." Based on the trial's evidence, the jury should return not-guilty verdicts on Boshears' charges of murder and concealing of a homicidal death because Kearns' death was not a homicide, Bretz noted. "You can only be guilty of that if there's a homicide involved," Bretz explained. "This is not a first-degree murder. There is no concealment of a homicidal death." Prosecutors argue that Jeremy Boshears pulled out his loaded gun and fatally shot Katie Kearns after discovering she was getting several text messages from her ex-boyfriend Danny Brandt that were "sexual in nature." John Ferak/Patch During the first set of closing arguments, Assistant Will County State's Attorney Tom Bahar gave a PowerPoint presentation showing the events leading up to Kearns' death and Boshears' conduct over the next several days. The defendant's behavior was indicative of someone who had committed murder and wanted to do everything he could to hide the evidence and hide his identity, according to Bahar. Bahar maintained that Kearns' ex-boyfriend, Danny Brandt, sent her several sexual text messages about wanting her to drive to his place to have his sex with him. The prosecutors maintain that Boshears grew angry when he learned of the texts and that's what motivated him to pull out his gun and shoot her in the head. Bahar reminded the jury how Boshears sent Kearns approximately 330 text messages over the course of eight days, "despite being married" and living with his family in Coal City. One of his text messages read, "I got you for (expletive) life," Bahar read. Another read, "I want you, only you." Prosecutors argue that Jeremy Boshears pulled out his loaded gun and fatally shot Katie Kearns after discovering she was getting several text messages from her ex-boyfriend Danny Brandt that were "sexual in nature." John Ferak/Patch After Joliet Outlaw Colby O'Neal left the club, shortly before 2 a.m., "Danny Brandt began texting her in the early morning while" most of the texts were not responded to, "she responded to one text," Bahar explained. "And the remaining texts ... became sexual in nature." During the next hour, Bahar said, Boshears gets on his phone, making a barrage of phone calls to O'Neal and several other Joliet Outlaws. When O'Neal eventually returns to the clubhouse around 3 a.m., "Colby witnesses something covered with a sheet," Bahar argued. "The defendant and Colby place it in (her) Jeep. The defendant testified that the object wrapped (in the tarp) was the dead body of Katie Kearns." Did Boshears drive his wounded girlfriend to the nearby Silver Cross Hospital, Bahar asked?No, he did not. Instead, Boshears took her to St. Anne, an hour south of Joliet. After hiding her body on Ron Keagle's farm, Boshears sent her a text message around 8:30 a.m. "knowing she was already dead," Bahar argued. Then, when Kearns' distraught family could not find her, finding her missing at the Joliet Police Department, her brother had a chance to talk with Boshears. Boshears told her brother that he walked her outside the club, hugged her, kissed her goodbye and watched as she headed home toward New Lenox, Bahar reminded the jury. When Boshears sat down for an interview on Wednesday, Nov. 15, 2017, he told the two Will County sheriff's detectives the same story. "I don't know what happened. I don't know, man. I walked her out, she got in her car, she was a cool ass chick, she was a cool ass chick," the jury hears Boshears say, as Bahar replayed the 2017 police interview on Friday morning. Assistant State's Attorney Tom Bahar argued that Jeremy Boshears pulled out his loaded gun and fatally shot Katie Kearns after discovering she was getting several text messages from her ex-boyfriend Danny Brandt that were "sexual in nature." John Ferak/Patch