Crime & Safety

Wife-Killer Allan Kustok's Sentencing Again Pushed Back For Pillowcase Talk

The pillowcase will be photographed in front of witnesses next week and then brought by a police escort to a crime lab.

Nearly three months ago, it took a jury less than two hours to decide Orland Park businessman Allan Kustok killed his wife by putting a bullet through her face.

But wrangling by attorneys over the testing of a pillowcase from the couple's marital bed has postponed Kustok's trip to prison, and it doesn't look like he is heading there any time soon.

Last month, Kustok's attorneys convinced Cook County Judge John Joseph Hynes to allow the post-conviction pillowcase testing. On Tuesday, his lawyers and prosecutors hammered out the details of how the testing will be done.

The attorneys will meet June 13 at the Bridgeview Courthouse where the pillowcase will be photographed in order to memorialize its appearance. Someone from the Orland Park Police Department will then deliver the pillowcase to the Illinois State Police crime lab, and there it will be tested.

Kustok, 63, will return to court next month so everyone can find out how things are going with the testing of the pillowcase.

Kustok killed his wife, Jeanie Kustok, as she lay in bed. On the morning of her death in September 2010, Allan Kustok claimed to have been woken by a gunshot. He said he found his wife of 34 years dead alongside him. There was a .357 Magnum resting on her body, he said.

During Allan Kustok's trial, prosecutors questioned his behavior in the wake of his wife's death.

Instead of calling 911—or anyone else—Allan Kustok picked up the six-shot revolver and fired the five remaining bullets into an armoire.

He cradled his wife's bloody body for at least 45 minutes, then "wrapped her in a robe, bedsheets, pillowcases, towels—he literally wraps her up like a mummy, like a piece of meat," Assistant State's Attorney Jim Papa explained during the trial.

Once he had his wife wrapped up, Allan Kustok loaded her into his SUV and drove her to the Palos Community Hospital emergency room.

Besides calling attention to Allan Kustok's questionable reaction to finding his wife dead, prosecutors pointed out he indulged in extramarital affairs and sought out women on the adultery website Ashley Madison, all while friends and relatives thought of him as a devoted husband the head of a model family.

After Allan Kustok was found guilty, his lawyers filed court papers asking for a new trial. Judge Hynes has yet to rule on the request.

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