Wisconsin man convicted by second jury in antifreeze murder of wife
A Wisconsin man was found guilty of his wife’s 1998 murder for a second time Wednesday after his first conviction was overturned.
A jury convicted Mark Jensen, now 63, of first-degree intentional homicide in the murder of his wife and mother of two, Julie Jensen, whose body was found at their Pleasant Prairie home in Kenosha County.
He had tried to pass her off as depressed and suicidal at the time, and said a letter she wrote two weeks before her death was meant to incriminate him. Because her death was initially ruled a suicide, the case took nine years to get to trial the first time.
He was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to life without parole.
Jensen appealed on grounds that the letter should not have been allowed into evidence, and he winning a new trial. A Kenosha County judge then vacated the conviction in April 2021, though he was held on $1.2 million bail.
The new trial began on Jan. 11, with prosecutors alleging that Jensen started dosing his wife with antifreeze in December 1998, then drugged her with a sleeping medication and suffocated her over the course of three days.
Jensen’s defense attorneys continued to claim that Julie Jensen had been driven to suicide by the troubles and infidelity in their marriage. But other evidence, including Mark Jensen’s internet searches about lethal doses of antifreeze, was enough for a second jury to convict.
Jensen is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14.
With News Wire Services
