Legal

Jennifer Hudson faces family members’ alleged killer

By | Published on Wednesday 25 April 2012

Jennifer Hudson

Singer Jennifer Hudson appeared in court on Monday as the first witness to testify in the trial of the man accused of murdering her mother, brother and nephew in 2008.

As previously reported, the bodies of Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, and brother, Jason Hudson, were found at the family’s Chicago home in October 2008. The singer’s seven year old nephew, Julian King, was then discovered to be missing and a reward was offered for his safe return. Sadly, his body was found three days later.

In December the same year police arrested William Balfour, the estranged husband of Hudson’s sister Julia, and charged him with the murders.

It is claimed that Balfour, who at the time was on parole having already served seven years in prison for attempted murder and carjacking, had flown into a jealous rage after seeing balloons outside the Hudson family home, believing them to be from Julia’s new boyfriend. Prosecutors say he then went into the house and, using a gun he had stolen from Jason Hudson several months earlier, shot Donerson, went upstairs and shot Jason twice in the head, then drove away in Jason’s car with the seven year old Julian King, who he also shot before abandoning the vehicle.

Prosecutors claim that after the couple had become estranged in early 2008, Balfour had made a number of threats towards the Hudson family, telling Julia the day before the murders “I’m going to kill you, but I’m going to kill your family first”.

In court, Hudson said that her family had been unhappy with her sister’s decision to marry Balfour, which they had done in secret. She said: “None of us wanted her to marry him. We didn’t like how he treated her and I did not like how he treated my nephew”.

The case continues.



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