A Wisconsin man has been found guilty again of the murder of his wife in their home in 1998 during a retrial.
Mark Jensen, 63, was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide in the death of his 40-year-old wife Julie Jensen.
He was convicted in 2008 of her slaying, but his sentence was vacated in 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that a letter Julie Jensen wrote implicating her husband if she died violated his right to a fair trial, WTMJ reported.
"Mark Jensen is one of the most brutally cold-blooded people I've ever seen in my life," said special prosecutor Bob Jambois after the verdict, CBS58 reported. "To lay next to his wife at night as she's gasping for breath, gasping to live, but trying to live as he then listens to her, waiting for her to die."
Prosecutors alleged that Mark Jensen slowly poisoned his wife with antifreeze and sleeping pills and then used a pillow to suffocate her, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Jensen's defense argued that she committed suicide, WTMJ reported.
"Mark Jensen did not kill his wife," Defense attorney Jeremy Perri told jurors during closing statements. "We know this from the science, we know this from what Julie Jensen told her physician."
"Please think about the questions we've asked of the witnesses in this case. Please think about what my answer would be to the state's argument. This case is tragic on so many levels. There's depression. There's suicide. And there's an innocent man on trial for homicide," Perri said, according to WTMJ.
"Mark Jensen is innocent, and we ask you to return a verdict of not guilty," he said.
After the verdict, Jambois said he was happy that Julie's letter wasn't necessary for a conviction, according to CBS 58.
"I believe that Wisconsin court of Wisconsin Supreme Court got this issue wrong," he said, CBS 58 reported. "I think victims have a right to be heard in court."
Jambois said Julie wrote her letter to the Prairie Police Department implicating her husband on Nov. 21, 1998 and gave it to her neighbor to give to the police. She died on Dec. 3, 1998.
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"…if anything happens to me, he would be my first suspect," she wrote. "Our relationship has deteriorated to the polite superficial. I know he's never forgiven me for the brief affair I had with the creep seven years ago … Anyway, I do not smoke or drink … Mark wants me to drink more with him in the evenings. I don't. I would never take my life because of my kids — they are everything to me!"
"I pray I am wrong and nothing happens … but I'm suspicious of Mark's suspicious behavior and fear for my early demise."
Mark Jensen will be sentenced in April.