Prosecutors in murder trial: 19-year-old bride 'a means to an end' 
 
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 Donnie Rudd and Noreen Kumeta wed in 1973. She died 27 days later and Rudd is charged with her murder. Courtesy of The Hart Family 
 
 Prosecutors in former suburban lawyer Donnie Rudd's murder trial painted him as a man who married his 19-year-old second wife Noreen Kumeta after a whirlwind courtship, then killed her within weeks for the life insurance payouts. 
 
 "The defendant married Noreen because he wanted to kill her, and 27 days after he married her he did just that," Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Maria McCarthy said Tuesday during opening arguments in a case stemming from Kumeta's death nearly 45 years ago. 
 
 "Noreen was a pawn, a means to an end," said McCarthy, referring to the $120,000 Rudd collected upon Kumeta's death on Sept. 14, 1973, on what former Barrington Hills police officer Christopher Bish described as a "desolate, sparsely populated" stretch of road in Barrington Township. 
 
 Defense attorney Timothy Grace challenged prosecutors' interpretation of the events that Friday night when Rudd claimed his bride -- who he met when they worked at Quaker Oats in Barrington -- was thrown from their car after another driver ran them off the road near Bateman and Dundee roads. 
 
 "Opening statements are what lawyers anticipate, hope and pray the evidence will be," said Grace who insisted Noreen died in a terrible accident. 
 
 No evidence indicates Rudd killed his wife for her life insurance policies, Grace said, adding that prosecutors do not know when she obtained the policies, when she named Rudd a beneficiary and if he knew he was her beneficiary. 
 
 Rudd, 76, has pleaded not guilty. 
 
 Prosecutors say he staged the accident to cover up Kumeta's death, which was initially classified as an accident with a spinal fracture listed as the cause, according to Dr. Jae Han, a retired obstetrics and gynecology specialist. Han was moonlighting as an emergency room doctor at what was then Sherman Hospital in Elgin where Kumeta was pronounced dead on arrival. Han read from a hospital report he signed after testifying he did not remember treating Kumeta. 
 
 Bish, then a rookie, was among the first officers on the scene of the accident. He told jurors he found the car resting near a barbed wire fence about 165 feet from the road. 
 
 Bish testified he found Rudd sitting in the driver's seat with Kumeta's head in his lap and her body stretched out. 
 
 Bish testified there was blood on the side of the seat and blood on the passenger door. 
 
 After he and another officer lifted Kumeta out of the car, Bish performed CPR on her. He said she had no visible injuries to her neck or body. 
 
 Rudd claimed another driver crossed into their lane and when he tried to avoid the vehicle, the passenger door opened and Kumeta was ejected, Bish said, adding that Rudd pointed to a nearby rock with blood and hair on it, suggesting that was where Kumeta struck her head. However, Bish said he detected no blood on the ground or around the rock. 
 
 Asked by Grace on cross-examination how he remembered details from more than four decades ago, Bish replied it was the first fatality he ever encountered. 
 
 No autopsy on Kumeta was performed until 40 years later, when Arlington Heights police exhumed her remains as part of their investigation into the 1991 unsolved murder of interior designer and former Rudd client Loretta Tabak-Bodtke, who was found shot to death in her Arlington Heights townhouse. Police officials say that case remains open and Rudd remains a suspect, although he has not been charged. 
 
 Prosecutors say Rudd represented Tabak-Bodtke in a dispute with a business partner. They say he told the designer he had won her case and promised to deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars into her account. When he failed to do so, prosecutors say, Tabak-Bodtke threatened to report Rudd to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which they say had received similar complaints from other Rudd clients. 
 
 A former Northwest suburban patent attorney, Rudd was disbarred in 1994 for fraud and unlawful conduct. 
 
 In 2013, a Kane County medical examiner determined Kumeta died from blunt force trauma to the head and labeled her death a homicide, prosecutors said. They say two other forensic pathologists concurred with those findings. 
 
 Testimony continues today. ||||| Pathologist testifies head injury, not broken neck, killed 19-year-old bride 
 
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 Donnie Rudd and Noreen Kumeta wed in 1973. She died 27 days later and Rudd is charged with her murder. Courtesy of The Hart Family 
 
 Happy and beautiful. That was how Karen Mezera described her older sister Noreen Kumeta on Aug. 18, 1973, the day Noreen married Donnie Rudd, a patent attorney whom she met when both worked at Quaker Oats in Barrington. 
 
 Less than a month later, 19-year-old Noreen Kumeta was dead after their car crashed near Bateman and Dundee roads in Barrington Township. For more than 40 years, Mezera and her family believed an accident claimed the life of the newlywed, who was buried in her wedding dress. 
 
 In 2015, after her body was exhumed during an investigation into an unsolved 1991 Arlington Heights slaying, authorities classified Kumeta's death a homicide and charged Rudd, now 76, with murder, claiming he killed his wife for $120,000 in life insurance payments. 
 
 Rudd pleaded not guilty. His trial continued Wednesday in Rolling Meadows with testimony from DuPage County forensic pathologist Dr. Hilary McElligott, who was hired by Kane County in 2013 to conduct an autopsy on Kumeta's remains. 
 
 McElligott contradicted the findings of an emergency room physician at Sherman Hospital in Elgin, where Kumeta was pronounced dead on arrival after the 1973 crash. The now retired Dr. Jae Han listed spinal fracture as Kumeta's cause of death. 
 
 According to McElligott, Kumeta died from blows to her skull that caused lacerations, fractures and bleeding on both sides of her head. McElligott testified she found no evidence of a spinal injury and no other injuries to the body. 
 
 She also testified Kumeta's injuries were inconsistent with being thrown from a car in a low-speed accident or with hitting one's head on a rock, as Rudd initially claimed had happened. He told a Barrington Hills officer at the scene of the crash that another vehicle crossed into their lane on Sept. 14, 1973, and forced them off the road. 
 
 No autopsy was performed and a Kane County coroner's jury subsequently ruled her death accidental. On Wednesday, Arlington Heights police Cmdr. Richard Sperando testified Rudd gave him a different account of the accident. 
 
 Arlington Heights police began looking into Kumeta's death in 2012 as part of their investigation into the 1991 unsolved murder of interior designer and former Rudd client Loretta Tabak-Bodtke, a client of Rudd who was found shot to death in her Arlington Heights townhouse. 
 
 Rudd remains a suspect in Tabak-Bodtke's murder but has not been charged. 
 
 Sperando testified police received permission from a Cook County judge to exhume Kumeta's body in February 2013. In December 2015, he, several other officers and prosecutors flew to Sugar Land, Texas, where Rudd was living. 
 
 Rudd recalled the 1973 accident in a videotaped interview, which jurors watched Wednesday. In it, Rudd is heard telling Sperando he swerved and hit something after a car approached them head-on. 
 
 "When I came to, she (Kumeta) was out. I reached over and held her," Rudd said in the interview. He did not tell Sperando that Kumeta was thrown from the car. 
 
 Also on Wednesday, defense attorney Timothy Grace made a motion for a mistrial after testimony from Kane County Coroner Rob Russell, who said Kumeta has two death certificates on file, per Illinois law. One lists her death as accidental, the other lists her death as a homicide. Grace requested a mistrial after prosecutor Maria McCarthy referenced former Bolingbrook police officer Drew Peterson, who was convicted of killing his third wife, Kathleen Savio, whose death was also initially classified as accidental. 
 
 Calling the reference "highly prejudicial," Judge Marc Martin said he will instruct jurors to disregard the reference. 
 
 Testimony continues Thursday in Rolling Meadows. ||||| Car accident, or murder? 45 years later victim's husband goes on trial 
 
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 Sisters Cindy, left, and Lori Hart were teenagers living in Hoffman Estates in the early 1970s when murder suspect Donnie Rudd became their stepfather. In 2016, the sisters published a memoir, "Living with the Devil," to recount their experiences with Rudd, who goes on trial Monday for the 1973 murder of his second wife, Noreen Kumeta Rudd. Courtesy of The Hart family 
 
 Donnie Rudd and his third wife, Dianne Marks, married eight months after the death of his second wife, Noreen Kumeta. Courtesy of The Hart Family 
 
 Less than a month after Donnie Rudd and Noreen Kumeta wed in 1973, Noreen was killed in a one car crash in Barrington Township. Forty years later, a medical examiner reclassified her death as a homicide. Courtesy of The Hart Family 
 
 In 1973, 19-year-old newlywed Noreen Kumeta Rudd was killed near Dundee and Bateman roads in Barrington Township in what authorities initially believed was an automobile accident. Four decades later, they weren't so sure. 
 
 In December 2015, police arrested her husband, former Northwest suburban attorney Donnie Rudd, 76, on charges of first-degree murder. 
 
 Cook County prosecutors say he killed Kumeta, his second wife, on that stretch of road on Sept. 14, 1973, to collect on her life insurance policies. Defense attorneys say Kumeta died from the injuries she sustained when she was ejected from the car after an unknown driver forced the couple off the road. 
 
 The final determination rests with jurors at Rolling Meadows Third Municipal District courthouse, who will hear testimony when Rudd's trial begins there on Monday. 
 
 Defense attorney Timothy Grace says his client is eager for his day in court. 
 
 Rudd, a Texas transplant who was living in Sugar Land, Texas, at the time of his arrest, has pleaded not guilty. 
 
 "We look forward to finally getting this case to trial," Grace said. "We believe the state has a very weak case and do not believe they'll come close to meeting their burden" of proof beyond a reasonable doubt required for a felony conviction. 
 
 Kumeta's death 
 
 Police responding to the 1973 crash found Kumeta sprawled across the front seat of a car, not breathing, with her head in the lap of the then-31-year-old Rudd. Rudd, who married Kumeta 27 days earlier, told police another driver forced them off the road, the passenger door opened and his wife was thrown from the car. An emergency room doctor attributed her death to a cervical spine fracture, court records show. No autopsy was performed, and a coroner concluded Kumeta's death was an accident. 
 
 The cold case 
 
 Authorities had no reason to doubt Rudd's account until 40 years later when in 2013 Kumeta's body was exhumed as part of an Arlington Heights police investigation into the 1991 cold-case murder of interior designer Loretta Tabak-Bodtke. 
 
 Rudd, who was disbarred in 1994 for fraud and unlawful conduct, is a suspect in the still-unsolved case but was never charged. 
 
 Dr. Hilary McElligott, then of the Kane County coroner's office, conducted the 2013 autopsy of Kumeta's remains. McElligott determined Kumeta died from blunt force trauma to the head and labeled her death a homicide. Two other forensic pathologists concurred with McElligott's finding, prosecutors said. 
 
 "This is not a whodunit," said Cook County assistant state's attorney Maria McCarthy during a hearing last week. "Cause of death is everything in this case." 
 
 Prosecutors say life insurance policies totaling $120,000 motivated Rudd to kill his wife, whom he met when they worked together at Quaker Oats in Barrington. 
 
 "Our theory is Donnie Rudd married Noreen to kill her for the life insurance money," McCarthy said during last week's hearing. 
 
 If convicted, Rudd faces a minimum of 14 years in prison and an indeterminate maximum sentence, according to 1973 sentencing guidelines. 
 
 Earlier relationship 
 
 Before he married Kumeta, Rudd was living with Dianne Marks and her four children. The couple met during the early 1970s when both served on the Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54 school board. Both were married to other people at the time and left their respective spouses to be together. Their spouses eventually married and remain together to this day, said Marks' daughter Cindy Mulligan, of Barrington. 
 
 According to prosecutors, Rudd informed Marks he was marrying Kumeta the day before the wedding. A week after Kumeta's death, Rudd moved back in with Marks and the couple married eight months later, according to prosecutors. They remained married until Marks died of breast cancer in 1996, said Mulligan, adding that at the time of her mother's death, Rudd was involved with another woman. 
 
 'Living with the devil' 
 
 "She was devastated," Mulligan said of her mother. "He abandoned her during the vulnerable time at the end of her life." 
 
 The one time Rudd visited Marks, he arrived with paperwork for her to sign and left within the hour, she said. 
 
 "I don't understand how anyone could be so heartless," Mulligan said. 
 
 After her mother's funeral, Mulligan and her siblings did not see Rudd until his 2015 bond hearing, she said. 
 
 Mulligan recalled that when she was a teen Rudd told her and her siblings Kumeta's death was not an accident. According to Mulligan, Rudd told Mulligan's sister Lori Hart that a well-known politician took out a contract on his life and it was the hitman who forced the car off the road in September 1973. 
 
 "If I knew then what I know now, I would have asked more questions," said Mulligan, who co-authored a 2016 book with Hart titled "Living With the Devil" chronicling their lives with Rudd. 
 
 Still a suspect 
 
 According to Arlington Heights Deputy Chief Nathan Hayes, Rudd remains a suspect in the April 4, 1991, slaying of Tabak-Bodtke, who was found shot in her Arlington Heights townhouse. 
 
 Rudd, who was Tabak-Bodtke's lawyer in a business dispute, told her he had settled her case for several hundred thousand dollars, according to prosecutors. After Rudd failed to deposit the money in her account, they say, Tabak-Bodtke threatened to report him to the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which prosecutors say had received similar complaints from other Rudd clients. 
 
 Tabak-Bodtke's townhouse showed no signs of a break-in or struggle, prosecutors said. Two neighbors reported seeing Rudd's car, whose vanity license plates read "Mr. Condo," at Tabak-Bodtke's home the day of her murder. 
 
 Mulligan, who has followed Rudd's case closely, has attended numerous hearings since his 2015 arrest. She sympathizes with Tabak-Bodtke's children and with her own mother Dianne, who stood by Rudd for more than two tumultuous decades. 
 
 "You don't think somebody living in your house is capable of that," she said. "I can't imagine what Noreen's family thinks." 
 
 More than anything, Mulligan wants the truth to come out. 
 
 "But I don't know if Donnie is capable of telling the truth," she said.
– For more than 40 years it was thought a car accident killed 19-year-old Noreen Kumeta a month after her 1973 wedding. Now, prosecutors argue the woman buried in her wedding dress was perhaps the first of her husband's murder victims. In a trial playing out in Illinois' Cook County, 76-year-old former lawyer Donnie Rudd stands accused of killing Kumeta on a lonely stretch of road on Sept. 14, 1973, to collect $120,000 from life insurance policies, per the Washington Post. "The defendant married Noreen because he wanted to kill her, and 27 days after he married her he did just that," Assistant State's Attorney Maria McCarthy said Tuesday during opening arguments, with prosecutors noting Rudd had been living with another woman until the day before his marriage to Kumeta and resumed living with her a week after Kumeta's death. They would marry eight months later, per the Daily Herald. Yet defense lawyers say there's no evidence to suggest Rudd knew he was beneficiary of Kumeta's policies, or that she didn't die in a car accident as Rudd has long claimed, per the Daily Herald. Indeed, Kumeta's death was initially ruled an accident based on Rudd's account of her hitting her head on a rock after being thrown from their car as another driver forced them off the road. But that narrative has since been called into question after a 2015 police interview in which Rudd made no mention of a rock, per the Daily Herald, and a 2013 autopsy on Kumeta's exhumed body indicating murder via blunt force trauma to the head. The developments coincide with an investigation into the 1991 murder of Loretta Tabak-Bodtke, a Rudd client shot to death in her home on the same day Rudd's car was seen there. Rudd remains a suspect in that killing but hasn't been charged.