THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!!
Husband in double murder-suicide had killed previous wife
CHICAGO (AP) -- A man who stabbed his first wife to death more than two decades ago used a Civil War replica rifle to kill his current wife and her son before committing suicide in their upscale suburban home, police said Tuesday.
Richard Wiley left a 40-page, handwritten suicide note indicating he shot and killed Kathy Motes, 50, and Christopher Motes, 17, and saying he refused to go back to prison, Wilmette police Deputy Chief Brian King said.
Police conducting a well-being check Monday found the three bodies inside their Wilmette home, a parsonage of the family's church, where Kathy Motes worked.
King said Wiley, 54, apparently killed his wife and stepson Saturday afternoon, then shot himself Sunday night.
Wiley stabbed his 25-year-old wife, Ruth, to death in 1985, and was convicted and sentenced to 30 years in prison two years later, according to news reports at the time. He was paroled in 2000.
At his murder trial, Wiley said he suffered from a rare mental disease called "intermittent explosive disorder," but the judge rejected his claim that he was insane. Wiley reportedly called police himself after the 1985 killing and was found "leaning over the victim, hugging her and crying, `I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'"
Wiley suggested in his suicide note that he killed Kathy Motes during an argument, then killed her son.
"It's a kind of a dissertation of the difficulties that Mr. Wiley was having," King said of the note, adding that it included "hints of remorse."
Wiley met Kathy Motes through their church, First Presbyterian of Wilmette, where she worked as an office coordinator. The pastor, the Rev. Sarah Sarchet Butter, said church members knew about Wiley's past but that "our faith community welcomed and loved him."
Wiley was unemployed but was a talented carpenter who had built cabinets for the church, Butter said.
She said Kathy Motes was "beloved of our congregation," and that Christopher "enriched our congregation in every way."
Authorities believe Wiley shot Kathy Motes around 2:30 p.m Saturday, then shot the teen when he returned home from a Boy Scout meeting later in the afternoon, King said.
The bodies of Wiley and Kathy Motes were found in a second-floor bedroom, while Christopher Motes was found in an upstairs bathroom; all three had single gunshot wounds to the head, King said.
The murder weapon, found by Wiley's body in a second-floor bedroom, was a black-powder, muzzleloading Civil War replica rifle that may have belonged to Christopher Motes, a Civil War buff, King said.
Wiley apparently had sawed off the barrel of the rifle, which could take several minutes to load because it requires black powder and a metal ball to be loaded through the muzzle, he said.
Despite Wiley's criminal history, King said police had no previous complaints of violence at the Wilmette home and there were no orders of protection against Wiley.
"There's nothing that predicted this level of violence in that home," King said at a news conference.
But James Morici, who prosecuted Wiley for the 1985 murder, told the Chicago Tribune he remembered Wiley as a menacing figure.
"Sometimes people have asked me over the years if there is anybody I was afraid would come after me," Morici said. "And the only one I could think of was Richard Wiley. I could picture him sitting in the penitentiary, biding his time."
Christopher Motes' classmates at New Trier Township High School were in shock, District 203 Superintendent Linda Yonke said Tuesday.
"Chris was a well-known and well-loved senior. ... He was an easygoing student who had many friends," Yonke said. "New Trier staff and students are devastated by this tragedy."
He participated in Scouts, belonged to a military history club at New Trier and had been accepted to attend Roanoke College in Virginia, Yonke said.
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