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Illinois Man Convicted Of Killing In Bizarre Craigslist Sex Ad Case Gets Retrial
Timothy Smith was convicted of murder after he offered his pregnant wife for sex online—and shot the man that came over to take him up on the proposition. But now he's getting a new trial.
The retrial for an Illinois man that advertised sex with his pregnant wife and then killed the man that showed up has begun.
Timothy Smith was first convicted in 2013 of first-degree murder for shooting Kurt Milliman after Milliman showed up to Smith's house responding to a Craigslist advertisement that offered sex with Smith’s wife, according to the Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake.
Kimberly Smith had reportedly agreed to have sex for money while she was two-months pregnant, but after Milliman arrived she changed her mind, the Northwest Herald reported. Milliman, 48, reportedly became upset, slapping Smith and grabbing her arm.
In response, Timothy came into the room and shot Milliman in the back with a handgun, the Northwest Herald reported. Facing murder charges, he said that he had shot Milliman in self-defense only after he heard his wife scream.
"When deputies arrived, the couple was standing outside, and they immediately informed the deputy that the person inside had been shot," Andrew Zinke of the McHenry County Sheriff’s department told the Northwest Herald. "The responding deputy secured the couple for safety and gave rescue assistance for the victim."
Timothy Smith was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 and given a 50-year sentence, according to jail records.
An appellate court in Illinois, which said jurors in the case should have been allowed to convict Smith on a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter, overturned his conviction in 2015, the Chicago Tribune reports.
Smith was given a new trial, and on Monday, jury selection in the case was cut short when Smith’s lawyers told the court that their client decided to have the judge decide his case, the Tribune reports.
The same judge that oversaw Smith’s original trial will be the one making the final decision in this case.
It is unclear how Smith’s lawyers will navigate the retrial. In the past, they have defended the shooting as self-defense, claiming that the gun “just went off,” according to the Tribune.
Both Kimberly and Timothy Smith told police at the time of the alleged murder that Milliman was an intruder. The couple has now walked that claim back, and Kimberly pleaded guilty to filing a false police report, the Tribune reports.
Additional witnesses took appeared in court on Tuesday. Smith is being held in the Menard Correctional Center.
[Photo: Illinois Department of Corrections]
