Second jury finds Wisconsin man guilty in wife’s slaying

Judge Anthony Milisauskas polls the jury in regard to the guilty verdict in Mark Jensen’s trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Wednesday. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in 2021 that Jensen deserved a new trial in the 1998 death of his wife Julie Jensen, who was poisoned with antifreeze. (Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool)

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A jury found a Wisconsin man guilty Wednesday in a second trial for killing his wife with antifreeze and by suffocation in 1998.

The verdict of first-degree intentional homicide against Mark Jensen was announced in a Kenosha County courtroom.

Jensen, 63, first was convicted in 2008 in the slaying of Julie Jensen inside their Pleasant Prairie home.

Prosecutors alleged he began poisoning her with antifreeze in December 1998, drugged her with a sleeping medication and later suffocated her to death over a three-day period.

Jensen had maintained his innocence, with his attorneys arguing that Julie Jensen was depressed and killed herself after framing her husband.

He was sentenced then to life without parole, but a Kenosha County judge vacated Jensen’s first conviction in April 2021 after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled he deserved a new trial. The court found that a letter his wife wrote incriminating him in the event something should happen to her could not be used by the prosecution.

Jensen is scheduled to be sentenced on April 14.

Mark Jensen watches as the judge polls the jury regarding his guilty verdict in his trial at the Kenosha County Courthouse on Wednesday. (Sean Krajacic/The Kenosha News via AP, Pool)