Evidence now focus after Jennifer Hudson testifies

Hudson was the first witness called at the murder trial of William Balfour, who is charged with shooting dead her mother Darnell Donerson, 57, her brother Jason Hudson, 29, and her nephew Julian King, 7.


Balfour, married to Hudson's sister Julia Hudson, did not treat Julia or her son, Julian, well, Hudson testified. "I would tell her (Julia) over and over again not to marry William," she said.


Hudson testified about the harrowing day of October 24, 2008, when she learned that her mother and brother were dead and her nephew was missing. She flew home to Chicago and identified her mother and brother's bodies at the morgue. On October 27, she was back at the morgue to identify her nephew's body.

Before Hudson moved out in the summer of 2006, the family had lived together in the same house in Chicago where the bodies of her mother and brother were found. Julian King's body was found in a white SUV that Jennifer Hudson had bought for her brother Jason.


Prosecutors say Balfour stole the vehicle, killed Julian in the back seat, and then abandoned it. The murder weapon, a handgun which had been stolen from Jason Hudson, was found in a vacant lot near the SUV, according to prosecutors.


In opening arguments at the trial, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Veryl Gambino described Balfour as a jealous and vindictive man who repeatedly threatened to kill Julia Hudson and her family.


Public defender Amy Thompson told jurors during her opening statement that DNA found on the gun didn't match Balfour, which "absolutely, positively" excludes him as the killer. But prosecutors claim that Balfour targeted the family in a horrific act of vindictiveness against his ex-wife.
Shortly after Thompson and prosecutors laid out their cases, Jennifer Hudson took the witness stand in sometimes tearful, gut-wrenching testimony. Wearing a simple, all-black dress, the singer-actress broke down at one point, dabbing tears as she testified just yards away from Balfour.
The "American Idol" finalist and Oscar winner, who was in Florida at the time of the shootings, spoke of her family and her reaction to her sister, Julia Hudson, telling her in 2006 that she was marrying Balfour.
"None of us wanted her to marry him," the 30-year-old said, her voice cracking as she struggled to hold back tears. Asked later if she was ever friends with Balfour, whom she knew from junior high school, Hudson answered with disgust.
"Never," she said firmly. "I tried to keep my distance from William Balfour."
With her hair up in a bun, Hudson at first seemed composed on the stand — even as she leaned around the judge's bench to identify Balfour. But she began crying when talking about seeing her family for the last time the Sunday before the killings.
After just more than 30 minutes, she stepped down, grabbed a fistful of tissues and walked across the courtroom directly in front of jurors. She took a seat next to her fiance, David Otunga, best known for his stint on VH1's reality show "I Love New York."
Sitting on a fourth-row bench, she bowed her head and wiped away tears after prosecutors called her sister to the stand and began playing a recording of the 911 call Julia Hudson made after discovering their mother's bloodied body.
"Oh my God, oh my God," she is heard yelling at a dispatcher, who tells her to stop screaming because he can't understand her. "My momma, my momma!"
Balfour, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder, slumped in his chair and kept his eyes fixed on his former wife, whose divorce from Balfour was finalized just last year.
Julia Hudson described how Balfour repeatedly threatened her and her family after she rejected his pleas in May 2008.
"He said, 'If you leave me, you will be the last to die. I'll kill your family first,'" she said, her voice quivering.
Under cross-examination, she acknowledged she was still having sex with Balfour days before the slayings.
The killings happened the day after her birthday. Prosecutors believe that Balfour became enraged by balloons he saw at the home that he thought were from her new boyfriend.

Thompson suggested during her opening that the killings may have been a result of alleged drug dealing by Hudson's brother, Jason Hudson, in the crime-ridden South Side neighborhood where they lived in Chicago. She claimed that police pinned the slayings on Balfour because they felt pressured to make an arrest, since the victims were a celebrity's relatives.
"The police were on the hook," she said. "They had to find their man and find him fast."
Prosecutors said Balfour went inside the three-story house around 9 a.m. and shot Hudson's mother, 57-year-old Darnell Donerson, in the living room, then shot her 29-year-old brother, Jason Hudson, twice in the head as he lay in bed.