Wisconsin man gets life in prison for wife’s 1998 slaying

By The Associated Press

Mark Jensen makes his way into the courtroom for his sentencing hearing, Friday, April 14, 2023, in Kenosha, Wis. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Jensen deserved a new trial in the 1998 death of his wife Julie Jensen, who was poisoned with antifreeze. (Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool)

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin man convicted for a second time of killing his wife with antifreeze and by suffocation in 1998 was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole.

A Kenosha County judge sentenced Mark Jensen, 63, who was convicted by a jury in February of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his wife, Julie Jensen.

Prosecutors alleged he poisoned Julie Jensen with antifreeze, and also drugged her with a sleeping medication before later suffocating her to death in their Pleasant Prairie home.

Jensen has maintained his innocence, with his attorneys arguing that Julie Jensen was depressed and killed herself after framing her husband.

Kenosha County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Milisauskas said during Friday’s sentencing, “There’s no doubt in my mind Julie Jensen suffered for a long time.”

“He could have divorced her, separated, whatever, but he chose not to do that. What he chose to do was torture her for a long time,” Milisauskas said, according to WISN-TV.

Jensen was first was convicted in 2008 in his wife’s slaying and sentenced to life without parole.

But a Kenosha County judge vacated Jensen’s first conviction in April 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled he deserved a new trial. The court found that a letter his wife wrote incriminating him should something happen to her could not be used by the prosecution.