Man Killed 1 Wife in 1985, Now a 2nd Spouse? Prosecutor: I Feared Him
In 1987, Richard Wiley was sentenced to 30 years in prison for stabbing his 25-year-old wife to death two years earlier. He served 15 years, and was released in 2000, apparently remarrying around that time.
Yesterday, his body, his current wife’s body and her 17-year-old son’s body were found in the parsonage of a church in an upscale Chicago suburb, where his wife worked as office coordinator. Although an investigation has not yet been completed, it seems clear that Wiley shot his wife and stepson to death before shooting himself to death, according to the Sun-Times.
Wiley, 54, had unsuccessfully asserted an insanity defense based on his “intermittent explosive disorder” at trial for the murder of his previous wife, the newspaper writes.
His current wife, Kathryn Wiley-Motes, 50, a former divinity student, had worked for about a decade at First Presbyterian Church of Wilmette. Her son, Christopher Motes, was a senior at New Trier High School and was on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout.
Wiley apparently killed his wife and stepson on Saturday, using a Civil War replica muzzle-loading gun that might have belonged to the teen, the newspaper writes. Wiley then committed suicide, probably on Sunday, according to a note he left that said he wasn’t going to return to prison. It indicates that Wiley and his wife argued before the murders, and that the teen may have been shot to death after his mother was killed.
Rev. Sarah Sarchet Butter, who is the pastor of First Presbyterian, says the couple met in church. She and deputy police chief Brian King say Wiley-Motes had never reported any prior incidents of domestic violence by Wiley, and Butter adds that Wiley-Motes always insisted she felt safe around Wiley when his murder conviction came up.
However, the former prosecutor who won Wiley’s conviction in his first wife’s murder tells the Chicago Tribune he always feared that Wiley, among all of the violent suspects he tried in his seven years as an assistant Cook County state’s attorney, might someday come looking for him.
“I remember that case vividly,” says James Morici, the former prosecutor, of Wiley’s trial. “Oh, my God. … Sometimes people have asked me over the years if there is anybody I was afraid would come after me. And the only one I could think of was Richard Wiley. I could picture him sitting in the penitentiary, biding his time.”
Updated at 10:10 p.m. on March 3 to include subsequent Chicago Tribune coverage and accord post with updated Sun-Times article.
