Ex-Lawyer Donnie Rudd Found Guilty For Wife's 1973 Murder

ROLLING MEADOWS, IL — For 42 years, a young bride's death was viewed as the result of a tragic accident. Now, her husband, a former suburban attorney, has been convicted of first-degree murder the 1973 death of 19-year-old Noreen Kumeta. Donnie Rudd, 76, was found guilty Monday and could be sentenced to at least 14 years in prison after a jury took three hours to deliver its verdict, the Daily Herald reports.

According to prosecutors, Rudd had married and then killed Noreen Kumeta on Sept. 14, 1973, in order to collect an insurance pay out, the report stated. He admitted he had been living with another woman and her children at the time of his marriage to Kumeta, but he said that didn't mean he murdered the teen and staged it to look like an accident, the report added.

Kumeta, who had taken out four maximum-term life insurance policies worth $120,000 to Rudd, was found dead in a car on Bateman and Dundee roads in Barrington Township. An emergency room doctor and a coroner originally called her death accidental, but Rudd's lawyers said prosecutors and Arlington Heights police influenced those witnesses' memories years later, according to the Herald.

RELATED: Barrington Man Charged in 1973 Murder of Wife is Now Free on Bail

Authorities decided to reopen the investigation into Kumeta's death while investigating another case — the still-unsolved 1991 murder of Loretta Tabak-Bodtke, who was found shot to death in her Arlington Heights home. Tabak-Bodtke had been a legal client of Rudd's and had threatened to file complaints about him, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Kumeta's body was exhumed in 2013, and a second autopsy listed blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of death, the Herald reports. But medical expert for Rudd's defense concluded that Kumeta died from a spinal injury, the report added. Rudd was charged with her murder in 2015.

Kumeta died 27 days after marrying Rudd, who was the beneficiary for the insurance that she took out from Quaker Oats, the company that employed both of them, the report stated. Although prosecutors call the timing of the policies suspicious, especially for a 19-year-old, Rudd's lawyers said the teen did so because a high school boyfriend had been killed in a car accident, the report added.

Rudd had been out on bond during his trial. That was revoked Monday, and he will remain in jail while he awaits sentencing.

More via the Daily Herald

Donnie Rudd (Photo via Patch archive)