McHenry man gets 49 years in prison for murdering ex-girlfriend, sealing her body in bedroom

WOODSTOCK – In what a McHenry County judge called a "horrible, diabolical and unforgivable" act, a McHenry man was sentenced to 49 years in prison for fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend and entombing her body in a room in his home.

“At one time in your life you may have been a good person, but I don’t know what happened to you,” Judge Sharon Prather said Wednesday during a sentencing hearing.

Jurors found William J. Ross, 65, guilty in July of the first-degree murder of Jacqueline Schaefer. The petite woman with long blonde hair was shot in the left temporal lobe and spine sometime in 2011, sealed in a bedroom in Ross' McHenry home, 518 Country Club Drive, and then abandoned after he continued to live there for several months, prosecutors said.

First-degree murder is a crime punishable by at least 20 years and up to 60 years in prison. The jury also found the crime was committed with a firearm, which required a sentence of at least 25 years in prison.

Ross was arrested in 2013 in Las Vegas and charged with concealing a homicide before he was charged with murder in 2014. The concealing a homicide charged was dismissed before trial.

Schaefer's remains were found behind a sealed bedroom door by Ross' friend, Renee Bitton, and her then-boyfriend, Jerome Mikos, on Nov. 6, 2013.

Ross and his attorney, Stephen Richards, said the jury’s verdict was based on “unsatisfactory and improbable evidence” because they believed there was no clear evidence that connected Ross to Schaefer’s death. Richards said his client plans to appeal.

Prather said she believed the evidence presented at trial was overwhelming. She sentenced Ross to 24 years on the first-degree murder charge and 25 years for the firearm enhancement. He must serve 100 percent of the sentence.

“I have no doubt that [the jury] got the verdict correct,” Prather said.

Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Combs said the defendant deserved more than the minimum sentence of 45 years, describing him as a misogynist who hates women.

“You have to have ice water in your veins to be that cold-blooded,” Combs said.

Combs also read a victim impact statement on behalf of Schaefer’s sister, Tracy Flathau. Flathau wrote that her sister was by definition a loner who didn’t have a large network of friends. While she struggled with alcoholism and paranoia, Flathau described her sister as someone who would give the shirt off her back to someone in need.

She said she and several family members, including Schaefer, would travel to the Ozarks for annual family trips where they would camp, fish and eat a lot.

Flathau said Schaefer didn’t completely drift away from family until she moved back to Illinois and began renting from Ross. She said Ross likely believed he picked someone “no one would miss,” but she wanted to make it known that Schaefer was in fact missed by many.

“He will seek out another Jackie. He may not be stupid enough to kill her, but he will abuse [someone else],” she wrote. “[A lengthy sentence] won’t bring Jackie back, but it will protect other women from him.”