OTTAWA — The killer in Ottawa’s murder/cremation case has struck out with the Illinois Supreme Court and will be back in court July 3 to argue his legal team was ineffective.

William Horman, 52, of Dayton was convicted of murder and sentenced to 40 years for the disappearance and death of his boss, Robert Dowd, owner of a rural Ottawa truck wash, in 2015.

Horman appealed his conviction and sentence but with limited results. The 3rd District Appellate Court sent his case back only for a fresh hearing on claims of ineffective legal counsel. The Illinois Supreme Court refused, on May 22, to even hear his case.

Thursday, back in La Salle County’s courthouse, Chief Judge H. Chris Ryan Jr. set Horman’s case over for a status hearing on the eve of Independence Day, by which time the state’s top court will have issued a formal order denying Horman’s appeal. That will give Ryan the green light to settle the ineffective counsel issue once and for all.

Horman signaled Thursday he’s eager for a fresh hearing and tried to introduce new evidence of his innocence. Specifically, he asked the court to accept an affidavit to undermine a key witness at trial.

Though prosecutors were unable to prove bones recovered from a burn pit were Dowd's, they convicted Horman on the strength of threatening comments he'd made against Dowd. Prosecutors also cut a deal with Jonathan Beckman, who helped dispose of Dowd's body in a makeshift burn pile. Beckman completed a 5-year sentence for homicidal concealment.

Now, Horman argues Beckman was not a credible witness. He furnished Ryan with an affidavit from a former jail inmate who heard Beckman brag about the deal he cut in exchange for fingering Horman.

That inmate, however, has credibility issues of his own. It was Cody L. Smith, who's serving 55 years for sexually assaulting a 2-year-old and then conspiring to have three witnesses killed.