GARETT and GAVIN COLEMAN - (2009) / Convicted: Father Chris Coleman - Columbia IL

UPDATED: Day Five of The Coleman Trial
Brian Kelly

April 29, 2011 1:14 PM

WATERLOO, Ill. (KMOX) –The first week of the Christopher Coleman triple-murder trial ended Friday, with a police chaplain saying that Coleman was “stoic” when he was told that his family had been killed and a police officer saying Chris had his father call ‘Sheri’s best friend in Florida’ while in the ambulance outside his home shortly after the bodies of Sheri, Gavin and Garett had been found.

Chaplain Jonathan Peters told the jury that when he arrived at the Coleman home, he knelt next to Chris on the driveway, held him and told him his family had been killed. Peters described Coleman as, “Stoic, quiet, absolutely not hysterical.”

Peters said that once inside the ambulance, Coleman looked at the scratches on his right arm and asked, “How did that get there?” He showed Peters his arm, which Peters said had “red, blotchy marks” on it. Peters and Police Captain Jerry Paul testified that Coleman slammed his arm down on the padded gurney in the ambulance. Paul told the jury that later, at police headquarters, Coleman told his father that the scratches must have gotten on his arm when he hit the gurney.

Paul also testified that as Chris and his father were discussing calling Sheri’s family to inform them of the deaths, Coleman asked his father to call “Sheri’s best friend, Terri, in Florida.” He says Coleman got the her number from his phone and gave it to his father. The name Paul heard as Terri, was actually Coleman’s alleged mistress Tara Lintz.

Earlier in the day, the jury saw the videotaped testimony of Evangelist Joyce Meyer and her son, Joyce Meyer Ministries CEO of US Operations Daniel Meyer.

Joyce Meyer testified that she has known Chris since he was ‘little boy’ and hired him in 1998. She said he had worked his way up to become her personal security guard and was being paid $100,000 a year.

Meyer said that she did not know of Coleman’s affair with Lintz until after the killings. She said she was aware Chris and Sheri were having marital problems. She said Chris told her, “Sheri was controlling. No matter what he did it wasn’t enough and he was tired of it.”

She said that when she suggested to Chris that he and Sheri get counseling from a ministry pastor, Chris, “Right away said yes.” She added that sometime later Coleman and the pastor counseling them, told her that he and Sheri were “doing better.”

Meyer said Coleman had told her of the threats he had received, and that no other ministry security officers had received threats.

She also told the jury that in April, she noticed that Chris, “Wasn’t as attentive to his duties. He was forgetting things, not as engaged.” She said that on the day before the killings, May 4, 2009, Chris called in sick,which she says was very rare for him.

Meyer talked about a missionary trip to Florida, where Chris asked to stay behind as the rest of the traveling party returned to St. Louis. She said Chris told her he wanted to visit a “girlfriend of Sheri’s.”

Meyer said that while divorce would not have meant immediate termination for Chris, if she had known Coleman was having an affair, “It could have definitely affected his job.”

Earlier, former Joyce Meyer Ministry Human Resources Manager Susan Boyd, testified that according to the ministry’s script for interviewing prospective employees, “Adultry…is grounds for termination.” She and others, including Joyce Meyer, told the jury that others had been fired from the ministry for having affairs.

In his videotaped deposition, Daniel Meyer testified that he noticed the bill on Chris’ ministry issued cell phone was high. Upon investigation, he found that many calls were being made to a number in Florida. When he called it, he heard a female voice, which he “thought odd.” He says Coleman told him it was a friend of Sheri’s, and he was calling her husband seeking advice on their marital problems.

Daniel Meyer says that after Coleman told him of the threats, he offered Coleman a chance to stop travelling and offered to provide additional security at his home. He testified that Coleman told him that he and Sheri had prayed about it and decided they didn’t need anything.

Columbia Police Officer Shawn Westfall testified that he went to Coleman’s home on April 27, 2009, after Coleman reported getting a threat letter in his mailbox.Westfall says neighbors reported seeing nothing unusual around the box from the time Sheri got the mail at 3:10pm until Chris says he found the threat in the mailbox, at 6:10pm. Westfall also testified that Coleman told him Sheri had turned in a previous threateing letter to Columbia Police, but Westfall said he had never seen or heard of that letter.

The day started with two Illinois State Police Crime Scene Investigators describing collecting evidence on the scene. One lifting fingerprints off the back window that was the suspected point of entry, plus footprint impressions under that window and in the foyer.

The jury saw a videotape of the inside and outside of the house. Coleman looked down at his tablet on the table, as the video showed the spray painted walls and the victims’ bodies still in their beds.

In cross-examination, investigator Abby Keller said that Coleman was cooperative with investigators, even pulling out a strand of his own hair when asked for a sample.

The jury also heard from five friends of Sheri Coleman, and a neighbor.

The friends testified that Sheri had told them that Chris wanted a divorce. Stephanie Jones choked back tears as her texts with Sheri from December 27, 2008 were displayed on the courtroom wall. They show Sheri telling her that Chris wants a divorce. Jones asks, when did he tell you? Sheri replies, ”A couple of days ago. He said me and my kids are in the way of his job.” Sheri ends the texting with, “I just need as many prayers as I can.” Other friends testified that Sheri told them that Chris had told Sheri that she was keeping him from his destiny.

The neighbor, Vanessa Riegerix testified that Chris told her he wanted a divorce because he didn’t like the way Sheri spends money. In cross-examination, Riegerix told the jury that, ”She (Sheri) did like to spend money.”

One witness appeared to glare at Coleman as she walked into the courtroom, and then started at him as she walked out.

When the trial resumes Monday, prosecutors intend to start calling handwriting, linguistic, fingerprint, footprint, paint, hair and a forensic computer experts. They say they may complete presenting their case by noon Tuesday.

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2011/04/29/coleman-trial-the-reason-for-divorce/

ladibug wrote: Ya did good! Thank you for reporting this. It just dumbfounds (is that a word?) me how people can be so evil. Poor Sheri and her dear boys. IMO Tara Lintz should be out of her mind with guilt and horror over the ramifications of her betraying her friend and of encouraging a man to leave his family. How can she live with that? And the "court reporting" indicates she thinks it's funny. And what a lily-liver excuse for a man Chris Coleman is. The trial is on-going so I'll say "even if he didn't murder his family" how could he betray his wife like that and disappoint his sons by not going to Disney World because he was obsessed by his skanky mistress. Sorry, this whole story is upsetting.

And she's still wearing the damn "promise ring"! Coleman's as big a skank as Casey Anthony - and the mistress is not any better!

No outside DNA found in Coleman home
1:13 PM, May 2, 2011

Video Report: http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=928190464001

Waterloo, Ill (KSDK) -- DNA evidence found inside the Coleman home where Sheri Coleman and her two sons, Garett and Gavin, were found murdered, was linked to members of the Coleman family, according to forensic scientists who testified in the murder trial.

Illinois State Police Forensic Scientist Michael Brown said he collected several DNA samples from the victims' fingernails and from the bedding after the May 2009 murder. On Sheri and Garett, they found another person's DNA on them, but it was consistent with that of family members. Brown said that would not be uncommon because they all lived together and had constant contact.

"Not a single genetic marker that I identified would have to have come from outside source," Brown said.

The defense asked Brown if the DNA could have come from an outside source.

Brown said it was possible because certain people share some common DNA markers.

The defense asked if investigators examined DNA samples from Keith Coleman and if it would be similar to Keith's.

Brown said they did not examine Keith's DNA and that the brothers may have DNA similarities, but the exact profile would differ.

It was the second time the defense has brought up Keith Coleman's name. But, investigators said he has a credible alibi. He was spotted on an ATM camera in Arkansas.

Illinois State Police Forensic Scientist Melody Levault testified that the loose strains of hair found on the crook of Gavin's elbow and near Garett's head, were consistent to that of Sheri's hair.

In the first week of trial, Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist, testified that he believed the three were strangled by the same ligature and that's how the hair was transferred. He believed Sheri was killed first, then the boys.

When police arrived at the Coleman home after the murders, they found a back window opened, which they believed the killer may have used to get inside the home.

Rick Sawdey, who works for the company that made the windows, testified that the window was not damaged and that the window has a forced entry resistance mechanism that prevents anyone from entering from the outside. He said there was no damage to the locks and it did not appear to have ever been forcefully opened.

The prosecution could wrap its case as early as Tuesday.

If convicted, Coleman could face the death penalty.

NewsChannel 5's Ryan Dean and Casey Nolen are following the trial and tweeting updates on the case @ksdknews.

http://origin.ksdk.com/news/article/257242/3/No-outside-DNA-found-in-Coleman-home

Monday, May. 02, 2011
Coleman prosecution: Calls show delay, not rush of worried husband
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER - News-Democrat

Chris Coleman did not appear to be speeding home as might be expected of a man distraught that he wasn't able to reach his wife, according to testimony Monday about his cell calls.

AT&T network director James Kientzy testified Monday afternoon about the locations of the calls made by Coleman the morning his family was discovered murdered.

The first call at 5:43 a.m. on May 5, 2009, was east of Columbia, about the time Coleman left the house and headed to Gold's Gym in south St. Louis for a morning workout.

His next call came at 6:34 a.m., west of Interstate 55 and north of Interstate 255 in Missouri. The third call was at 6:42 a.m., south of Interstate 255 and just west of the Jefferson Barracks Bridge that leads across the Mississippi River and back to Columbia.

The fourth call was at 6:53 a.m. and was somewhere north of Interstate 255.

If Coleman were rushing home, he should have been south of I-255 by then, prosecutors said. They said Coleman was delaying, trying to give his neighbor and Columbia Police detective Justin Barlow time to find the bodies of Sheri Coleman and their young sons.

Also on Monday, what the defense pointed to as an intruder's footprint in the Coleman home may not have been a footprint at all.

Illinois State Police forensic scientist Thomas Gamboe is a footwear impression expert who testified Monday morning as the Chris Coleman triple murder trial started its second week. Gamboe testified that there was an unidentified impression inside the basement window in the family's home in Columbia.

He said it was a series of wavy lines without an identifiable toe or heel. He said it might not be a shoe. It could be the tire from a child's toy or from a wheeled dolly, he said.

Illinois State Police DNA expert Michael Brown said defendant Chris Coleman's DNA was found beneath murder victim Sheri Coleman's fingernails. No DNA from an unidentified source was found.

He said it would not be unusual to find a family member's DNA beneath a fingernail.

He said victim Garett Coleman, 11, had DNA from his brother Gavin, 9, under his fingernail.

Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman were all strangled in their beds on May 5, 2009. Chris Coleman is in day 6 of his trial for his family's murders.

The defense has pointed to an intruder as the culprit.

The prosecution said Coleman killed his family to be free to marry his mistress.

Read more: http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/02/1693172/coleman-murder-trial-testimony.html#ixzz1LEXSt3lH

McClellan: Hard-boiled crime in a high-tech age
BY BILL McCLELLAN • Posted: Sunday, May 1, 2011 12:25 am

Dashiell Hammett and Mickey Spillane would have a hard time making sense of much of today's world. I came to that conclusion after spending the last week at the Christopher Coleman murder case.

Hammett and Spillane wrote crime stories back in a time when people had secrets. For young people in the audience who don't remember a time before social media, secrets are things you don't want the world to know about. Like an affair. Cops and detectives in the old stories had to look for things like matchbooks with the names of hotels on them. That's how they could prove that people were meeting on the sly.

Not anymore. Along with jurors and the rest of the spectators, I watched — or heard — videotapes of Coleman and his lover, Tara Lintz. These videotapes were not the work of some private detective with a telephoto lens. The lovers made the tapes themselves. "We are in Hawaii being bad," announced Coleman on one of the tapes.

Perhaps it's healthy not to have secrets, but if you are already planning to murder your family to be with your lover — that is what the state is alleging — it doesn't seem wise to make videotapes celebrating your affair.

Affairs are not the only things that are videotaped these days. So are police interrogations. On Wednesday, we spent the entire day watching the interrogation of Coleman. The officers were unfailingly polite. They didn't shout. They didn't curse.

The police had not yet learned that a series of threats Coleman had earlier reported actually came from his own computer, and so they had not even considered the unthinkable notion that the murders were all premeditated. Instead, the interrogators operated on the premise that Coleman killed his wife in a rage, and then snapped and killed his two little boys.

"Something happened, and you said, 'Oh, my gosh! What in the world have I done?'" suggested interrogator Sgt. Dave Bivens of the Illinois State Police.

I thought about the detectives I used to know. They wore fedoras. They were loud and profane and impatient — and that was with each other. In the pre-videotape days, it was not unusual for a suspect to tell of interrogators shouting in his face, pounding the table, and maybe hitting him in the head with a telephone book.

During a break, I saw Bivens' father, Jim. He used to be an investigator for the state police. I have known him for years. He probably has a fedora in his closet.

"'Oh, my gosh'?" I said.

"I don't know where Dave learned that kind of language," he said.

By the way, Dave Bivens and Justin Barlow, then a Columbia police detective and now a deputy U.S. marshal, were impressive interrogators — courteous but insistent.

The film was surreal. The walls were gray. A black-and-white clock dominated the wall. There was little action. Suddenly, an attractive young woman walked in. Keeping with the colorless motif, she wore black slacks and a whitish blouse. She had a gun on her hip. Her name was Abby Keller, and she was an investigator with the state police. She was there to take photographs of Coleman and collect his clothes for evidence.

When she asked him to take his shorts off, the screen was partially blackened so we would not see him in his underwear. I do not know why the sight of a man in his underwear would have offended our sensibilities.

The day before, we had seen autopsy photos. In addition to the photos of the boys, there was a close-up of Sheri Coleman's face and neck. Her face was bruised. Her neck bore three ligature marks.

That is the kind of evidence Hammett and Spillane would understand. Obviously, she fought off the killer's first two attempts to strangle her before succumbing to the third.

And really, the human side of things hasn't changed since they wrote their stories. On Friday, a series of Sheri's friends testified. Several of them were very attractive. All seemed nice. They knew Sheri from work or church. They were the kind of young women the 10 women on the jury could identify with.

In this new age, witnesses sometimes do not have to rely on their memories to recall conversations. For instance, one of Sheri's friends had saved a text message exchange. It began with a message from Sheri. "Can you pray for me?" "Of course, friend! What's up?" "Chris wants a divorce ... He said me and my kids are in the way of his job."

Hammett and Spillane would not have understood the technology, but the significance of the message would have resonated with them. They could not have written better dialogue.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/bill-mcclellan/article_c8d5bdbc-7ab0-5513-9c77-35ca9d81af47.html

Tuesday, May. 03, 2011
'I will kill them all while they sleep': Coleman testimony focuses on threatening messages
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER - News-Democrat

The emailed threats sent to murder defendant Chris Coleman and his employers at Joyce Meyer Ministries warning of harm to Coleman's family were sent from an email account created on Coleman's laptop computer, a prosecution witness testified Monday.

Ken Wojtowicz, a Granite City police officer and Major Case Squad member, testified that the email address "destroychris@gmail.com" was created on Nov. 14 on a Dell laptop owned by Coleman.

"I will kill them all while they sleep," said the email sent Nov. 14, 2008 -- five months before Sheri Coleman and her sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, were found strangled in their beds at their Columbia home.

The seven emails, dated from Nov. 14-16, 2008, were sent from the same IP, or Internet protocol, as the ones listed in Coleman's computer, Wojtowicz said.

Another email, also dated Nov. 14, 2008, and sent to Danny Meyer, CEO of Joyce Meyer Ministries, had the subject: "Chris' family will die."

"Tell Chris his family is dead," the email stated. "They don't deserve to live with someone that protects the S.O.B. Joyce."

Another email, dated Nov. 15, 2008, stated that the author wants Joyce Meyer to return their money and talk to them and "all this will stop." Yet another threatens Coleman, Danny Meyer and Joyce Meyer's husband, David.

Under cross-examination by Coleman's lawyer, John O'Gara, Wojtowicz was asked whether he searched for a remote access program that would allow someone to access Coleman's computer.

Wojtowicz replied that he did not, but analysis showed that his computer powered up just moments before the e-mail account was established and shut down after the emails were sent out.

"I don't know of any technology that would allow you to power up a computer remotely," Wojtowicz said.

The email was sent a short time after Coleman noted on his computer that he'd started a relationship with Tara Lintz, his wife's friend and the motive behind the murders, prosecutors said.

The prosecution on today is expected to wrap up its case against Coleman, with expert testimony on linguistics, handwriting and spray paint. Hofstra University professor Robert Leonard is expected to testify that Coleman's writing is consistent with the threats sent before the murders and the graffiti found in the house with the bodies.

In other testimony on Monday, AT&T network director James Kientzy testified Monday afternoon about the locations of the calls made by Coleman the morning his family was discovered murdered.

The first call at 5:43 a.m. on May 5, 2009, was east of Columbia, at the time Coleman left the house and headed to Gold's Gym in south St. Louis for a morning workout.

His next call came at 6:34 a.m., west of Interstate 55 and north of Interstate 255 in Missouri. The third call was at 6:42 a.m., south of Interstate 255 and just west of the Jefferson Barracks Bridge that leads across the Mississippi River and back to Columbia.

Coleman called Columbia Police Det. Sgt. Justin Barlow to ask him check on his family because his wife didn't answer the phone. He told Barlow that he was on the bridge and would be there in five minutes.

The fourth call was at 6:53 a.m. and was somewhere north of Interstate 255 near Dupo.

If Coleman were rushing home, he should have been south of I-255 by then, Prosecutor Kris Reitz said in his opening statement last week. Chris Coleman did not appear to be speeding home as might be expected of a man distraught that he wasn't able to reach his wife, according to testimony Monday about his cell calls.

Illinois State Police forensic scientist Thomas Gamboe testified Monday that what the defense pointed to as an intruder's footprint in the Coleman home may not have been a footprint at all.

Gamboe is a footwear impression expert who said there was an unidentified impression inside the basement window in the family's home in Columbia. He said it was a series of wavy lines without an identifiable toe or heel.

He said it might not be a shoe. It could be the tire from a child's toy or from a wheeled dolly, he said.

Illinois State Police DNA expert Michael Brown said defendant Chris Coleman's DNA was found beneath murder victim Sheri Coleman's fingernails. No DNA from an unidentified source was found.

He said it would not be unusual to find a family member's DNA beneath a fingernail. Brown said victim Garett Coleman, 11, had DNA from his brother Gavin, 9, under his fingernail. It was not unusual for cells to be transferred by casual contact, according to Brown.

Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman were all strangled in their beds on May 5, 2009. Chris Coleman is in the sixth day of his trial for his family's murders.

The defense has pointed to an intruder as the culprit. For months before the murders Coleman got threatening messages stating he and his family would suffer if televangelist Joyce Meyer did not stop preaching.

The prosecution said Coleman killed his family to be free to marry his mistress, Lintz, while holding on to his $100,000 job at Joyce Meyer Ministries. They claim the threats were Coleman's attempt to manufacture an alibi.

http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/03/1694133/testimony-focuses-on-threatening.html#ixzz1LIsVObyI

Coleman computer linked to pre-murder threats
BY NICHOLAS J.C. PISTOR • Posted: Tuesday, May 3, 2011 12:21 am

WATERLOO • The menacing, obscenity-laced emails to Christopher Coleman began with one clear message: "Your family is done."

Somebody was demanding that televangelist Joyce Meyer stop her type of ministry or the family of Coleman, her bodyguard, would pay.

"Tell Joyce to stop preaching [expletive] or Chris's family will die," said one email. Another stated: "I will kill them all as they sleep."

Once the emails stopped, printed threats appeared in the mailbox.

The writer would go on to strangle Sheri Coleman and her sons, prosecutors claim, but the motive wasn't Meyer's preaching and the killer was really sending the threats to himself.

Kenneth Wojtowicz, a Granite City police officer who specializes in technology, bolstered the state's case Monday in testimony that the emails to several ministry employees came from a Gmail account named "destroychris" created on Coleman's personal laptop computer.

Prosecutors say Coleman was setting the stage to divert detectives to look for some aggrieved outsider once he killed Sheri Coleman, 31, and their sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, in bed at home in Columbia, Ill., in 2009. Officials claim the motive was to start a life with his mistress without exposing the adultery that might have cost him his job.

Officials say the first of seven emails, sent Nov. 14, 2008, roughly coincides with the beginning of Coleman's romance with Tara Lintz, a former friend of his wife. Coleman wrote on his computer that Nov. 5, 2008, was "the day Tara changed my life."

John O'Gara, a defense attorney, attacked Wojtowicz's testimony, questioning whether someone could remotely access Coleman's computer to send the threats. O'Gara held up his personal iPad, saying it can remotely control his work computer.

Wojtowicz said it's possible, but that the computer must already be on to permit such access. He said an internal log indicated Coleman's laptop was turned on shortly before the messages were sent, and then turned off.

O'Gara noted that Wojtowicz did not look to see if remote access software was installed on it, and suggested that a litany of computer viruses could "allow people to overtake" the system.

Last week, Wojtowicz testified about sexually charged pictures and videos of Lintz and Coleman found on the computer and on Coleman's personal cellphone. O'Gara pointed out that pictures of his children were found there too, and schedules for their upcoming baseball games.

Coleman had installed a surveillance system at home, but Wojtowicz said a recorder to store the video images was not found.

Earlier Monday, prosecutors used cellphone data to show that Coleman took a long way home from Gold's Gym in south St. Louis County on the morning of the murders. It's significant because he called police during the trip, worried that his family didn't answer the phone. Officers found the bodies.

James Kientzy, of AT&T, testified that Coleman's first call was at 5:43 a.m., the time he left home that May 9, and connected through a cellphone tower that serves his subdivision. The next call, at 6:34 a.m., was near the gym. Calls at 6:42 a.m. and 6:43 a.m. used towers near the Jefferson Barracks Bridge. Those fit his self-described movements, but a call at 6:53 a.m. was from an area north of Columbia, Kientzy said. That's off the route home.

In cross-examination, Kientzy acknowledged that technology cannot pinpoint a location.

The defense has suggested that a killer slipped in through an unlocked basement window. But testimony from forensic scientists Monday did not indicate evidence of it.

They said DNA at the house was the family's, and that a clump of hair on Gavin Coleman's elbow was consistent with his mother's.

Thomas Gamboe, of the Illinois State Police, said most footprints there belonged to police. A faint impression by the basement window could not be identified. "It could be a shoe," Gamboe said. "It could be a tire from like a child's toy; it's about that size."

Prosecutors expect to complete their case today with handwriting and linguistic testimony linking Coleman's writing to the threats.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_c3386b2b-ccf0-5cb2-9d80-ed46f0256b37.html

Expert: Email threats sent from Coleman laptop
12:15 AM, May 4, 2011

Waterloo, IL (KSDK) - As he excused them for the day, Judge Milton Wharton told the jury to pack a bag, bring a tooth brush and prepare for the possibility of a long day at the Monroe County courthouse on Wednesday. The prosecution rested its case against Chris Coleman Tuesday after seven days of testimony and evidence.

Coleman is accused of strangling his wife Sheri and sons Garett and Gavin in their Columbia, Illinois home nearly two years ago.
Prosecutors say he did it to be with his mistress and hoped to get away with it by sending himself and his family death threats related to his job as televangelist Joyce Meyer's bodyguard.

The state concluded its case by calling a second expert who said emailed threats to Coleman were sent from his laptop.

Jurors also heard from hand writing and linguistics experts. They testified that there are similarities between the threats and writing samples from Chris Coleman -- including the spray painted messages left inside the Coleman home the morning of the murders.

Defense attorney Bill Margulis was also able to get Illinois State Police hand writing expert Lindell Moore to admit that he could probably find similarities between the attorney's hand writing and the un-natural style of writing with spray paint.

Paint experts said RustOleum brand "Apple Red" spray paint was used to vandalize the home. And a Columbia police officer said she tracked Coleman's purchase of that paint to a south county hardware store three months before the murders.

Through cross-examination the defense pointed out no paint was ever found on Chris Coleman and no paint can was recovered.

Earlier in the day Purdue University Professor of Computer Forensics Marcus Rogers said the IP address on Coleman's laptop matched up with emails sent from an email account titled destroychris@gmail.com.

Rogers said it was his opinion that someone sat down at Coleman's laptop, turned it on, created the email account and sent the emails.

The defense asked Rogers if someone could have done it remotely.

Rogers said it has to be physically turned on by a person, and that portion, cannot be done remotely.

The defense also asked Rogers if a virus could have allowed someone to hack into the computer and send the emails.

Rogers said he has reviewed 2011 virus protection software and he said he did not believe any virus could have done that and that he stands by his opinion.

The defense pointed out several user accounts were assigned to Coleman's laptop, but Rogers said the email address destroychris@gmail.com and the emails were sent from Chris Coleman's username.

Hofstra University Linguistics Professor Dr. Robert Leonard said there were similarities between the threats and documents Coleman wrote in the past. He said Coleman often reverses the placement of apostrophes in words. Coleman often wrote "'dont' and not 'don't.'" The same mistake was found in one of the threatening emails, according to Dr. Leonard.

He said many of the threats began with the same expletive and that it was very uncommon when it was compared to a database of threats the FBI has. Dr. Leonard said less than one percent of the 4,400 threats in the database began with that same expletive.

The defense brought up that FBI Agent Andre Simons looked at the threats on July 21, 2010 and said he could not form an opinion about the level of uniqueness about the threats.

A handwriting expert was also expected to testify in the murder trial for the prosecution.

The prosecution is trying to link Coleman to spray painted messages found inside the family's Columbia, Illinois home on the day Sheri Coleman, and their two sons, Gavin and Garett, were murdered.

Prosecutors believe Coleman wrote those messages to cover his tracks in the murders and make it seem like someone who didn't like him working for televangelist Joyce Meyer did the killings.
Some of the messages said "You paid for it" and "I saw you leave."

The defense claims someone murdered the three members of the Coleman family while Chris Coleman was at the gym. They said he left for the gym at 5:43 a.m. on May 5, 2009. Coleman claims he returned an hour later and they were dead.

Newschannel 5's Ryan Dean and Casey Nolen are folllowing the case. Follow them on Twitter through @ksdknews for the latest updates.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=257390

Civil suit filed in Coleman deaths
4:20 PM, May 4, 2011

Monroe County, IL (KSDK) - A wrongful death civil lawsuit was filed Wednesday on behalf of Sheri Coleman and her two sons, Garett and Gavin, against Joyce Meyer Ministries, Chris Coleman, Joyce Meyer and Dan Meyer.

Antonio Romanucci, of Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, and co-counsel Jack C. Carey, of Law Office of Jack C. Carey, filed the suit this afternoon on behalf of the estate. A press conference is scheduled for 4 p.m.

Chris Coleman is on trial for the murder of Sheri, and their two sons, Gavin and Garett. He worked as chief of security for Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Read the civil suit

The suit claims Joyce, her son, Dan, and the ministry did not do enough to protect the lives of Sheri and her sons.

It alleges Joyce and Dan knew about the threatening emails sent to Chris and also received some of the threats about killing the Coleman family. It claims some of the threats were sent from a computer issued by Joyce Meyer Ministries.

The suit also alleges Joyce Meyer Ministries knew or should have known that Coleman was having an affair. It said Dan suspended Coleman's cell phone and should have known about the affair based on telephone records.

Sheri and Chris attended marriage counseling through the ministry, and the suit claims the ministry had the duty to care for Sheri and that the ministry failed to warn her about threats.

It claims Coleman had a duty to refrain from taking action that would endanger the lives of his family and that he caused the death of his family.

Joyce Meyer Ministries and Coleman are both being sued in excess of $50,000.

Michael King, lawyer for Joyce Meyer Ministries, emphatically denied any wrongdoing, adding Joyce Meyer was named in the lawsuit because she is a successful businesswoman and this is about money.

King said Chris Coleman had reported the threats to the ministry and that they contacted police, making it a police matter.

Regarding Coleman's affair with Tara Lintz, King said the ministry did not know about the affair until police informed them after the murders were committed. He said Coleman lied to Daniel Meyer and the ministry about using his work phone to make calls to Tara Lintz in Florida, claiming they were to talk to Lintz's husband about Coleman's troubled marriage.

Chris Coleman is on trial for murdering his three family members. The defense finished presenting its case on Wednesday. The jury has yet to reach a verdict.

NewsChannel 5 and ksdk.com will have more information on this story throughout the day.

http://origin.ksdk.com/news/article/257604/3/Sheri-Colemans-family-to-file-civil-suit

Wednesday, May. 04, 2011
Jury's out: Prosecutor paints chilling final moment for Coleman sons
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER - News-Democrat

WATERLOO -- Monroe County State's Attorney Kris Reitz slowly built his arguments as he closed.

By the end, the courtroom was absolutely silent. The victims' mother and grandmother was weeping. The defendant leaned forward, his face flushed.

The decision on Chris Coleman's fate is with the jurors. They began deliberating at 3 p.m. Wednesday.

Reitz's closing statement was a portrait of triple murder defendant Chris Coleman's double life quickly coming to a head on May 5, 2009. Coleman had a $100,000 job, was traveling the world having adventures and had an affair with his wife's close friend making his life even more exciting.

But he'd promised his mistress, Tara Lintz, that they would get married and that he was serving his wife, Sheri Coleman, with divorce papers on May 5, 2009.

Coleman called in sick to work and was trying to decide what to do, Reitz said.

"It was becoming too much. He was going to lose Tara, or his dream job with the ministries or both," Reitz said.

Reitz pointed to his case's star witness, forensic pathologist and HBO series star Dr. Michael Baden. Baden said Sheri Coleman, 31, and the couple's sons Garett, 11 and Gavin, 9, were dead before 3 a.m. that day while Chris Coleman was home. Reitz said there was no one to argue with that.

Additionally Reitz said there was the call to the Colemans' neighbor, former Columbia Police detective Justin Barlow, from the Jefferson Barracks Bridge. The bridge is seven minutes from the Coleman home, yet Coleman took longer and his cell calls show he was heading north near Dupo before he went home.

Reitz pointed out the marks on Coleman's arms. He lied about how he got them: saying he fell against an ambulance gurney when witnesses said he only touched the matress, and then said he got them removing a satellite dish.

In the ambulance after his family's been found strangled, his father, the Rev. Ron Coleman, asked whether there was anyone he could call for his son. Chris Coleman said yes: Tara Lintz.

No one called Sheri Coleman's family to tell them of her death for days.

Reitz said the spray paint used for the graffiti in the house after the murders was bought by Chris Coleman. Coleman lied to police about his affair with Lintz. He texted her the night before the murders and that day as police were interrogating him. He cancelled his family's summer trip to Disney World but planned a cruise with his mistress. The handwriting expert matched Coleman to the threats and graffiti.

Then defense attorney James Stern delivered his summation. He said the entire case is circumstantial, that Coleman is presumed innocent and that the prosecution's chaim of circumstance is only as strong as its weakest link.

Stern said police were under pressure to solve the case and suffered from tunnel vision. They looked at no one other than Chris Coleman.

"This is a guy who was raised by a pastor and a mother who were in here every day. He went in the Marines when he was 18. He worked security for a godly person like Joyce Meyer.

"People like that just don't wake up one morning and slaughter their families," Stern said.

He said there was no physical evidence whatsoever connecting Chris Coleman to the three murders. He said the time of death was set by Baden, a hired gun in the case. He calculated the times of death could have been as late as 5:30 a.m. that day, while Chris Coleman was at the gym.

Stern said police never investigated a guy in a brown Cutlass seen throwing things off the Jefferson Barracks Bridge.

Then Reitz had the last word: He told the jurors they knew the defendant. They saw him take a video of himself masturbating in the shower.

"Do you believe that person wouldn't get carried away and do something stupid?" Reitz said. "I guess they would have you believe that he's not a murderer, but an unlucky, flagrant adulterer. But you have to throw out the evidence to do that."

He said Sheri was telling her friends that she and her kids -- not their kids -- were in the way of Chris Coleman's job.

He said in the end there was a struggle with Sheri Coleman in the bedroom. She had a black eye. There was a ligature mark on her chin, and another on her neck as she struggled against being strangled.

Then came the boys.

"When the killer went to each of them in turn, and sat down on their beds and reached for them, they didn't run. Why should they? It was just dad."

That's when Coleman flushed.

Earlier on Wednesday the defense presented its case. The defense case lasted three hours. The prosecution case lasted seven days.

The defense presented Ronald Butters, a forensic linguist and professor at Duke University. His testimony centered on what the prosecution's forensic linguist, Hofstra University professor Robert Leonard, had to say on Tuesday.

Butters said the things Leonard found significant were actually meaningless regarding the similarities between Chris Coleman's writing and the threats sent to the Colemans and the red spray-painted graffiti left in the Coleman home the morning of the murders. He said most can be attributed to typographical errors and misspellings. He said the pool of threat messages was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Leonard had testified that a misplaced apostrophe -- dont' -- was significant. Butters said it was a common error.

"This just disappears like a puff of smoke. It's not worth spending time on," he testified.

The defense also included former Illinois State Police document examiner Steve McKasson. He testified that the spray-painted graffiti found in the Coleman home was too inconsistent to determine who created it.

He said the writing was likely disguised. He said the slant and letter construction were disturbed, either because the writing was intentionally disguised or because of the medium.

Under cross-examination by Monroe County State's Attorney Kris Reitz, McKasson said there were consistencies with Chris Coleman's writing, but not enough to definitively say who wrote it. He could not rule out Chris Coleman as the author.

Under re-direct from defense attorney Bill Margulis, McKasson said there were a lot of other people who could have written the message, too.

Just before noon on Day 8 of his trial for the murders of his wife and young sons, Chris Coleman stood before the judge with his three defense lawyers behind him and declined to testify.

The jurors were out of the courtroom and Circuit Judge Milton Wharton asked him if he were sure, and whether he'd been under any pressure not to testify. Coleman said no, and the defense rested by noon.

Prosecutors have said Coleman wanted to eliminate his family so he could marry his mistress and keep his infidelities from costing him his $100,000 job with Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Threatening messages for months before the murders and the red graffiti found after the murders was Coleman's attempt to create an alibi and point suspicion away from himself, prosecutors said.

The defense is pointing to the threats and footprints in the home as evidence that it was an stranger angry with Coleman's boss, televangelist Joyce Meyer, who killed his young family. Coleman has maintained he is innocent.

http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/04/1695993/defense-witness-cant-say-murder.html#ixzz1LQEGvu3z

VIDEO REPORT: Coleman's Brother (Won't) Speak About Trial

http://www.fox2now.com/videobeta/?watchId=7478c806-cec7-478d-9728-fbcc97d13bf8

Coleman interactive time line: http://www.dipity.com/bnd/personal/?s=t

Coleman Deliberations Interview with Micahel Cuneo

 

Source: Coleman jury asks for definition of reasonable doubt
12:26 PM, May 5, 2011

Video Report: http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=931698479001

Waterloo, Ill (KSDK) -- A source tells NewsChannel 5 the Chris Coleman murder trial jury asked for the definition of reasonable doubt and asked to see the window from the Coleman home.

The jury resumed their second day of deliberations at 10:00 a.m. Thursday. They spent five hours deliberating on Wednesday and wrapped at 8:00 p.m.

During the trial, the defense repeatedly told the jury there was reasonable doubt in the case and that no physical evidence linked Coleman to the murders.

Prosecutors claim Coleman strangled his wife and their two sons at their Columbia, Illinois home on May 5, 2009. They claim he did it because he wanted to be with his mistress and feared he could lose his job in security for Joyce Meyer Ministries if he divorced his wife.

When police arrived at the Coleman home after the murders, they found a back window opened, which they believed the killer may have used to get inside the home.

Rick Sawdey, who works for the company that made the windows, testified that the window was not damaged and that the window has a forced entry resistance mechanism that prevents anyone from entering from the outside. He said there was no damage to the locks and it did not appear to have ever been forcefully opened.

The jury in the Chris Coleman murder trial could decide his fate on the second anniversary of the deaths of his wife, Sheri, and their two sons, Gavin and Garett.

NewsChannel 5's Ryan Dean and Casey Nolen are following the trial. Follow their tweet updates @ksdknews.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/257711/3/Source-Coleman-jury-asks-for-def-of-reasonable-doubt

COLEMAN FOUND GUILTY
Thursday, May. 05, 2011
BY BETH HUNDSDORFER - News-Democrat

WATERLOO -- On the second anniversary of the deaths of Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman, a jury found Chris Coleman guilty Thursday night of killing his wife and two sons.

Coleman bowed his head and began to breathe heavily after the verdict was read.

Angela DiCicco, Sheri Coleman's mother, cried as a relative held her hand.

Jurors deliberated about 15 hours before returning the verdict. They will return to the courthouse Friday for the penalty phase because prosecutor Kris Reitz is seeking the death penalty.

But Gov. Pat Quinn has abolished the death penalty in Illinois and commuted the sentence of 15 death row inmates to life in prison. That law will go into effect on July 1. Quinn has said he will commute the death sentence of anyone who receives it before then.

As Coleman was taken away from the courthouse, about 200 onlookers cheered. Motorists honked their horns.

Customers at a nearby bar stood outside and clapped.

"If there was ever a case the death penalty, it would be for a father who killed his wife and two young sons," said prosecutor Ed Parkinson.

Sheri Coleman's uncle, Joe Miglio, said, "Justice was done today for Sheri and her boys."

"I didn't know how many people put their heart and soul into finding out the truth," said Mario DiCicco, Sheri Coleman's brother. "Today we know what the truth is."

"This is a difficult day for obvious reasons," he said. "Today would be hard if I was in the Antarctic. So this is hard ... Next year will be better."

Kathy LaPlante, who was friends with Sheri Coleman, fell on a courthouse staircase and an ambulance was called. Her condition was not known.

Deputies escorted Coleman from the Monroe County Jail three times Thursday morning. He must be present if jurors have a question, but those questions are asked behind closed doors.

During their deliberations, the jurors asked Circuit Judge Milton Wharton for a definition of "reasonable doubt." They took a break to smoke at noon and were fed sub sandwiches at 12:30 p.m. That's when Coleman returned to the jail, a little smile on his face.

When jurors had another smoke break before 6 p.m., there were three distinct groups. Wharton appeared miffed.

Deliberations on whether Coleman strangled his wife and two young sons on May 5, 2009, began at 3 p.m. Wednesday and went until about 8 p.m. The defense presented its case in three hours Wednesday morning after the prosecution laid out its case over seven days.

Jurors returned to the Monroe County Courthouse at 10 a.m. Thursday after their daily bus ride from Pinckneyville. Jurors were selected from Perry County to avoid taint from pre-trial publicity.

Prosecutors closed on Wednesday by painting Chris Coleman as a man under pressure. He'd promised his mistress he'd marry her and he wanted to keep the $100,000 security chief job that allowed him travel and adventure with Joyce Meyer Ministries.

Reitz said Coleman repeatedly lied to police, and evidence showed he was home when his family was killed.

Defense attorney James Stern hammered on the fact that the entire case against Coleman is circumstantial and he is presumed innocent. He said there was no physical evidence whatsoever connecting Coleman to the three murders.

Coleman did not testify during the trial. One expert said that some defense lawyers take it as a rule of thumb that a defendant should always testify when they have a clean criminal record. The rule follows that the defendant should never testify when they have a rap sheet.

Stern argued that all the evidence was circumstantial and there was no direct evidence tying Coleman to the crime.

Coleman, a Chester minister's son, former Marine and employee to a world-wide ministry, didn't have so much as a jaywalking ticket, Stern maintained, and wasn't the type to kill his family.

Stern said the police were under pressure to solve a high-profile murder and decided Coleman was the main suspect within an hour of discovering the bodies. He also said police didn't thoroughly investigate the case, failing to determine whether surveillance video captured a man in a brown Oldsmobile Cutlass throwing things from a bridge.

Some of the highlights of the prosecution's case included:

* Dr. Michael Baden, the forensic pathologist, who testified that Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman likely were strangled sometime around 3 a.m. -- hours before Christopher Coleman left for a workout at a south St. Louis County gym.

* Tara Lintz, Sheri Coleman's high school best friend and Christopher Coleman's mistress, who testified that Chris Coleman told her that he planned to confront Sheri Coleman with divorce papers on May 4, 2009, but her name was misspelled. He told Lintz he was giving Sheri the papers on May 5, 2009 -- the day Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman were found murdered in their beds.

Lintz also testified that she met Coleman while he traveled on business as televangelist Joyce Meyer's personal bodyguard. The two traveled to Arizona and Hawaii together. The couple also planned a cruise in June 2009, but the cruise never happened. Coleman was in jail, charged with the murders.

* Marcus Rogers, a Purdue University professor who specializes in computer forensics, who testified that threats on the Coleman family sent to Joyce Meyer and her employees were created on a Dell laptop owned by Christopher Coleman.

* Former Columbia Police Detective Sgt. Justin Barlow, who told jurors that he set up a video camera trained on the Coleman mailbox to investigate threats left there. On the morning of May 5, 2009, Barlow crossed the street and found the bodies of his neighbors. Barlow questioned Coleman later. On the videotape, Coleman tells investigators that he had a peaceful night with his family on the night before the murders and denied he is having an affair, even as he was texting Lintz.

* Televangelist Joyce Meyer told jurors in taped testimony that Coleman would not have been fired if he divorced his wife, but he would have faced discipline, including termination, if he was having an adulterous affair.

* Columbia Police Detective Karla Heine testified that she discovered a receipt from a St. Louis hardware store, signed by Christopher Coleman, for RustOleum brand Apple Red spray paint -- the same type used to write graffiti the inside of the Coleman's house.

The defense presented Ronald Butters, a forensic linguist and professor at Duke University, whose testimony centered on what a prosecution forensic linguist, Hofstra University professor Robert Leonard, had to say Tuesday.

Butters said the things Leonard found significant were actually meaningless in regard to the similarities between Chris Coleman's writing and the threats sent to the Colemans and the red spray-painted graffiti -- "Punished" -- left in the Coleman home the morning of the murders. He said most can be attributed to typographical errors and misspellings. He said the pool of threat messages was too small to draw any meaningful conclusions.

Leonard had testified that a misplaced apostrophe -- dont' -- was significant. Butters said it was a common error.

"This just disappears like a puff of smoke. It's not worth spending time on," he testified.

The defense also included former Illinois State Police document examiner Steve McKasson. He testified that the spray-painted graffiti found in the Coleman home was too inconsistent to determine who created it.

He said the writing was likely disguised. He said the slant and letter construction were disturbed, either because the writing was intentionally disguised or because of the medium.

Read more: http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/05/1697545/jurors-log-7-hours-coleman-in.html#ixzz1LX8F6Gre

Exclusive interview with Chris Coleman's family
9:46 PM, May 17, 2011

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/259324/3/Exclusive-interview-with-Chris-Colemans-family

Exclusive interview with Chris Coleman's family
9:46 PM, May 17, 2011
By Ryan Dean

Chester, IL (KSDK) - "Dad and mom, I love you and miss everyone, God is good. And though the changes have been huge, his grace, peace and favor have been obvious."

Those are written words from Chris Coleman to his family. It's the first communication they've had from him, since being transferred from jail to a prison cell in Pontiac, Illinois.

"It says for me, personally and emotionally, 'I'm doing good,'" says Connie Coleman, reading her son's words.

This from a 34-year-old-man who will spend the rest of his life behind bars without the possibility of parole. Earlier this month, Chris Coleman was found guilty of killing his wife Sheri and two sons Garett and Gavin back in May 2009.

For two years, the Coleman family sat and watched their son go through the court system and the court of public opinion. They've held back from making many comments publicly, fearing it could jeopardize Chris' trial. But now that the trial is over and Chris has been found guilty, the family decided to speak with NewsChannel 5's Ryan Dean for their first on-camera interview.

"When people see that new mug shot, a lot of people say monster and devil. What do you see when you look at that mug shot and see Chris Coleman?" reporter Ryan Dean asked Chris' Dad Ron.

"A tired, disappointing, hurting young man, because that is not his character at all. (He) Loved his kids, loved his wife, had the affair, but he did not kill, did not kill his family," Ron said.

The Colemans say Chris cannot be a murderer because it's not in his character. And he's claimed his innocence since being arrested.

"I just flat out asked him and said to him 'Hey, if you lost your marbles and did this, don't put me, mom, Dad and Keith (sibling) through this. It's too much on top of losing family, we are going to have to deal with this.' He started to break down crying and say 'No, I didn't do it.' He's my brother and I'm going to believe him until he tells me different," said Brad Coleman, Chris' brother.

But is Chris Coleman lying to his family? After all, his parents say they had no idea that their son was living a double life by having an affair.

"If Chris was fooling you on that, maybe he is fooling you on this?" Ryan Dean asked.

"No, it's a whole different (situation), it's a whole different (situation), he can't go there, he couldn't go there to the murders, he couldn't go there with the boys, he could not go there," Ron Coleman said.

The Colemans also say there was no physical evidence linking Chris to the crime. He was found guilty on a circumstantial case.

"This man was convicted on his character," Ron Coleman said.

But there was some damning evidence against Coleman presented in court. Prosecutors said Coleman tried to cover up the murders by making it look like someone who hated him working for Joyce Meyer did it.

They said he even sent threatening letters and emails to his own family. Two computer experts said those emails were sent from Coleman's own laptop. And then there was the testimony from Coleman's mistress, Tara Lintz. She testified that Chris was going to give divorce papers to his wife on May 5, that's the day his family was found dead.

The Colemans cannot explain that, but say not everyone was being truthful on the stand and some evidence and testimony that could have helped Chris' case was not put on by the defense in trial.

Ron Coleman thinks his son wanted to take the stand, but didn't because he was advised not to. While the Colemans say they wish more was done on Chris' behalf in court, they cannot dwell on that and are waiting for an appeal.

"We are praying that the truth be found, and if the appeal doesn't happen, we just love him anyway," said Connie Coleman.

And if it ever does turn out that Chris admits to the crimes or the Colemans find physical evidence linking him to the murders, they say Chris deserves to be punished, but they will still support him.

"He would be forgiven by me and we would move on, that's the way it's supposed to be...I would never turn my back," said Ron Coleman.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/259324/3/Exclusive-interview-with-Chris-Colemans-family

Coleman's mugshot removed from Illinois state prison's website
BY NICHOLAS J.C. PISTOR • npistor@post-dispatch.com > 314-340-8265 | Posted: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 4:29 pm








Christopher Coleman's mugshot has been removed from the Illinois Department of Correction's website as a precaution to avoid any security or safety problems, the department's spokeswoman said on Wednesday.

Sharyn Elman, the spokeswoman, said it's common for the prison system to remove website information in high profile cases to circumvent any possible trouble for inmates and correctional officers. She said there have been no incidents with Coleman since he was transported to a state prison in Pontiac, Ill.

Coleman, a former bodyguard for televangelist Joyce Meyer, was convicted last month of strangling his wife, Sheri, and two sons in their home in Columbia, Ill., in 2009 to start a new life with a mistress. He is appealing the conviction.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_efb008d2-9797-11e0-a153-001a4bcf6878.html

As I think about this case and that of our dear ESOTD I have come to the conclusion that the requirements for an appeal of conviction should be made much stricter.
Yes, if new DNA blows the case wide open or if someone perjured or hid evidence there should be an immediate appeal; but we shouldn't, as a society, have to pay for the indigents' incessant attempts to change their sentence, just because somebody sneezed at the wrong time.

Man convicted of killing family to leave Ill.
6:55 PM, Jun 18, 2011

PONTIAC, Ill. (AP) -- The southwestern Illinois man convicted of strangling his wife and their two sons is being moved out of Illinois.

The Illinois Department of Corrections is in the process of moving Christopher Coleman to another state.

Corrections department Chief of Staff Cara Smith tells the Belleville News-Democrat that relocations are typically done for safety and security reasons.

Coleman didn't ask to be moved.

Coleman was convicted of killing Sheri Coleman and their sons, 11-year-old Garett and 9-year-old Gavin, in their home in Columbia in May 2009. He's serving a life sentence.

Prosecutors contend Coleman committed the crime to further an affair and avoid losing his high-paying ministry security job.

Smith says he's still being housed at the Pontiac Correctional Center as officials search for a state willing to take him.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/263647/3/Man-convicted-of-killing-family-to-leave-Ill

Chris Coleman new trial appeal denied
2:19 PM, Jun 27, 2011
Written by Kristen Gosling

Monroe County, Ill (KSDK) -- A judge has denied Chris Coleman's attorneys motion for a new trial.

The attorneys presented more than a dozen objections to Judge Milton Wharton about how the first trial was conducted.

The lawyers have not yet said if they will appeal Judge Wharton's decision. Judge Wharton was the judge during the trial.

Coleman is serving a life in prison sentence at the Pontiac, Illinois Correctional Center after a jury found him guilty of murdering his wife and two sons.

His attorneys cited 15 reasons for the appeal. One point claims that the defense motion for a mistrial was denied after the jury sent a note that the members were hung. They also said there should have been a mistrial when a friend of murder victim Sheri Coleman said in court that Sheri told her "Chris beat" her. They claim the friend intentionally made the statement to prejudice the defendant.

Read the Coleman appeal documents

They also cited that two jurors told the media the jury decided to vote for a conviction after examining a time stamped on the back of a photo that showed Coleman with the woman he had an affair with, Tara Lintz. The date was earlier than when the two allegedly started having the affair. The lawyers claim the extra-judicial evidence led to the jury's conviction verdict.
Coleman's defense team wants his conviction tossed out or a new trial if the court finds it appropriate.

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/264808/3/Chris-Coleman-new-trial-appeal-denied

Chris Coleman's interrogation and other evidence released
7:28 PM, Jul 7, 2011

Waterloo, IL (KSDK) - Evidence from Chris Coleman's triple murder trial was released to the public Thursday.

Coleman was convicted May 5, the second year anniversary of the murder of his wife, Sherri, and two sons, Gavin and Garett.

Among the evidence released by Judge Milton Wharton were dozens of photos including pictures of Coleman and his mistress Tara Lintz and photos inside the crime scene at the Coleman home.

The judge did not release graphic images of the victims or explicit videos made by Coleman and Lintz.

Prosecutors argued Coleman murdered his family to be with Lintz. They say he did not want a divorce because he feared it would cost him his six figure salary as the body guard for televangelist Joyce Meyer.

Meyer's taped testimony and her son Dan Meyer's testimony were also released.

Chris Coleman: http://bcove.me/80jt3qo1

Joyce Meyer: http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1042624858001

Dan Meyer: http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1042638879001

Chris Coleman Interrogation: http://www.ksdk.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=1042666553001

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/266134/3/Judge-releases-evidence-from-Coleman-trial

Chris Coleman moved out of Illinois prison
3:29 PM, Aug 18, 2011

Pontiac, IL (KSDK) - Christopher Coleman, the man convicted of murdering his wife and two children in their Columbia, Illinois home, has been moved from prison.

Until recently, Coleman had been serving a life in prison sentence at the Pontiac, Illinois Correctional Center.

The Illinois Department of Corrections said Coleman was moved to a prison outside Illinois, but would not specify which prison or even indicate which state he was in.

A recent mug shot of Coleman showed him with a shaved head and some facial hair on his chin.

KSDK

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/272395/3/Chris-Coleman-moved-out-of-Illinois-prison

Chris Coleman case to be featured on '48 Hours Mystery'

News-Democrat
Tuesday, May. 01, 2012

Chris Coleman, the Columbia man convicted last year of killing his wife and two sons, will be the subject of the "48 Hours Mystery" television show on Saturday, which is the third anniversary of the homicides.

The episode is slated to run at 9 p.m. on KMOV-Channel 4.

Coleman was sentenced to life imprisonment last year after he was found guilty of murdering his family. Sheri Coleman, 31, and the couple's sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, were strangled in their beds on May 5, 2009.

Testimony showed Coleman killed his family to be with his mistress, Tara Lintz, and keep his job as security chief at Joyce Meyer Ministries. He is a former Marine and a minister's son.

Read more here: http://www.bnd.com/2012/05/01/2161181/chris-coleman-case-to-be-featured.html#storylink=cpy

May 5, 2012 10:56 PM

Did Chris Coleman's obsession lead to murders?

Produced by Sara Ely Hulse and Clare Friedland

COLUMBIA, Ill. (CBS) - On the morning of May 5, 2009, Christopher Coleman returned home from the gym to a scene of chaos and unimaginable horror.

"I told him, 'Hey, they -- they didn't make it' -- being the family," Detective Justin Barlow of the Columbia Police Department said. "[Chris] sat down on the driveway and started sobbing. Said he felt like he was gonna throw up. And then kind of curled up in the fetal position."

Detective Barlow had been the Coleman's neighbor for five years and was the first to respond when Chris could not reach his wife.

"This crime scene, it wasn't bloody," he told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Maureen Maher. "...but that didn't mean it was less gruesome."

"Were you at all prepared for what you were about to walk into?" Maher asked.

"I don't think anybody could be prepared for that," said Barlow.

Upstairs, where they should have been safe in their beds, were 31-year-old Sheri and the couple's two young boys, 11-year-old Garett, and 9-year-old Gavin.

"What is the lasting image you have in your mind from that day?" Maher asked Barlow.

"I would say the one that sticks out the most would probably be Garett, just because he's the one that -- that, you know, I -- I discovered," he said.

"Is that a haunting image for you?"

"Yeah. Little bit," Barlow nodded.

The killer had not only taken Garett's life, but had desecrated the body by leaving another disturbing message.

"The spray paint in his room was actually on the sheet that was over his body?" asked Maher.

"It was and there was some remnants of the spray paint on him as well," said Barlow.

"We knew that -- that this case was gonna be probably the biggest one -- of our lives -- definitely our careers, probably our lives," said Chief Joe Edwards.

Columbia, Ill., is a small, quiet suburb outside of St. Louis. Chief Edwards calls it "a wonderful place to live and raise a family."

Chief Edwards immediately recognized that his two investigators were going to need some help and called in a special unit - Major Jeff Connor and the Major Case Squad of Greater St. Louis, which brought in an army of 25 seasoned cops.

"It's typically your smaller departments that need the resource -- need the help," Maj. Connor explained.

Hours after the murders, the Major Case Squad swung into high gear. The CSI team started processing the house, warrants were secured to go through the Coleman's phones and computers, while a very distraught Chris was taken to the police station to give his statement.

Coleman told investigators that it had been a normal morning. He got up and left for the gym around 5:40 a.m. and called Sheri numerous times to wake her up.

As neighbors woke to the news of the murders, they were both devastated and terrified.

"So as I got down the street, I see that it was at the Coleman house. And I text her right away and said, 'Is everything OK?' And I didn't get a response," said an emotional Vanessa Riegerix.

Riegerix, who lived down the street, said the Colemans appeared to have a perfect life raising their two beautiful sons.

"I always thought of them as the American family, the perfect family," Riegerix said. "...everybody would want their children like these two boys, polite-- always helpful ...they had a heart of gold."

The couple had been married for 12 years and met when they were both in the military, training at the K9 unit. Sheri became a stay-at-home mom.

Chris, 32, the son of a preacher, used his Marine and security experience to land a job for a well-known televangelist, Joyce Meyer.

"Joyce Meyer is now known throughout the country, and known throughout the world -- as a leading voice in the evangelical movement," St Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nick Pistor explained. "She's extremely successful financially. ...I've seen figures from $50 million to $100 million a year."

Pistor has followed the Coleman case for the last three years and is a CBS News consultant.

"Joyce Meyer does conferences all throughout the world in countries that have -- that don't necessarily respond well -- to women who -- are preaching -- a Christian message. And so she wanted some deeper security," he said.

But being Joyce Meyer's head of security apparently put a target on Chris Coleman's back. In November 2008, Chris had begun receiving death threats to his work email.

"Whenever Chris Coleman reported the first death threat that he got from his e-mail account at w-- at his work at Joyce Meyer Ministries, he came to us at the police department," said Barlow.

The email read:

Tell Joyce to stop preaching the bull---- if I can't get to Joyce, then I will get to someone close to her

"We give the Coleman family... extra patrol which we just patrol the area a lot more than we normally would during a shift and give it special attention to make sure nobody's there," explained Barlow.

It was in January 2009, that a hand-delivered threat showed up in the mailbox at the Coleman family home. It read:

"F--- You! Deny your God publically or else. No more oppurtunities [sic]. Time is running out for you and your family!"

"Did it concern you as a neighbor living so closely when you heard that there were death treats being made to the guy who lived across the street?" Maher asked Barlow.

"Absolutely," he replied.

Each note seemed to escalate the seriousness of the situation and, on April 27, less than a week before the murders, a final missive arrived with an ultimatum:

"Stop today or else. I know your schedule! You can't hide from me forever. I'm always watching. I know when you leave in the morning and I know when you stay home."

"You decided to ramp things up yourself to be proactive," Maher noted to Barlow. "And what did you do at your house?"

"We got one camera mounted up in my 5-year-old's bedroom and pointed it right at the mailbox," he replied.

With the camera aimed directly at the Coleman's mailbox, about 214 feet away approximately, according to Barlow, they hoped to get a clear shot of whoever was leaving the notes.

"...and be prepared for something that was gonna happen. And be as proactive about it as we could," said Barlow.

Instead, days later, the killer somehow snuck into the Coleman home and strangled Sheri, Garett and Gavin.

But if the murders were linked to the threats and Joyce Meyer Ministries, that meant the cops might now be on a global search for suspects.

"There was a lot of fear that there was somebody out there killin' families, and who was gonna be next?" said Maj. Connor.

20 Photos The Coleman triple murder View the Full Gallery »




The small town of Columbia, Ill., was reeling with the sudden loss of Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman.

"This touched an entire community... The neighbors were shocked," reporter Nick Pistor explained. "They saw the young boys playing touch football with their father on the front lawn. These were little boys that they knew."

Close friends like Kathy LaPlante were crushed.

"You could just see the pain on everyone's face. It devastated the community," LaPlante said. "Sheri was a loving mother, loyal friend and sister to me. My life's not the same...it put hole in my heart."

"If I would've known for one millisecond she was in danger, I would've been down there," said Sheri's brother, Mario DiCiccio.

For Sheri's brother and their mother, Angela, it was impossible to accept the reality of the brutal crime.

"She grew up to be a beautiful person on the outside as well as on the inside," Angela explained. "...they were her world, those boys. They were her world."

"Garett was more -- quiet and more like a -- more of a thinker. He was -- you could tell by lookin' in his eyes he was always thinking," Mario explained. "And Gavin was very...outgoing...he was like a social butterfly. ...his personality's just like his mom's. Just like his mother's."

"With Sheri, Garett and Gavin, I mean, I think that just... that's what the motivation was for everybody," said Det. Justin Barlow.

Hours into the investigation, the Major Case Squad continued to pursue their best lead - finding whoever wrote those threats.

"We tracked down people across the country who didn't like Joyce Meyer. We interviewed them to find out where they were at on May the 4th and May the 5th," said Chief Joe Edwards.

And that morning they were hoping Chris Coleman might be able to point them in the right direction:

Det. Barlow: Who do you suspect? I mean. Out of all these emails and things you've been talking at work, there's got to be one person that stands out in your mind?

Chris Coleman: (voice cracks) I don't have a clue. I should have been there this morning.

But as police continued to talk to Coleman, they were surprised by how he was acting:

Sgt. Bivens: How do you think they died?

Chris Coleman: I have no idea. You guys haven't told me.

Sgt. Bivens: OK. Do you have any clues?

Chris Coleman: (Mumbles)

"Did he ever ask how his wife and children died? Maher asked Barlow.

"No," he replied.

"He never asked."

"No."

"What else sticks out in your mind from those first few hours?"

"Just the lack of reaction, I mean just the lack of curiosity of 'what's going on,'" said Barlow.

So police kept probing:

Sgt. Bivens: Was there a problem in your relationship? Was there anything currently that wasn't going so well in your relationship?

Chris Coleman: No, not really I mean just a communication thing.

Sgt. Bivens: Had you seen anyone else outside of your wife.

Chris Coleman: What do you mean?

Sgt. Bivens: In a romantic way?

Chris Coleman: No.

Chris was adamant that he was not having a relationship outside of his marriage, so it seemed odd when he offered a stunning piece of information about another woman.

Chris Coleman: Tara in Florida that you guys are going to talk to, I talk to her a ton lately, but -

Sgt. Bivens: And what's with that?

Chris Coleman: Just a friend, somebody to talk to.

Tara is Tara Lintz - a cocktail waitress and an old high school friend of Sheri's.

Sgt. Bivens: OK. You said you had a close friendship, but were you actually doing anything that you felt wouldn't be approved by your wife?

Chris Coleman: Some of the conversations, probably.

Video: Watch excerpts of Chris Coleman's police interview

Coleman insisted they were just friends - that he met Lintz through Sheri when their family went to Florida on vacation.

Sgt. Bivens: Did it have potential to go further?

Chris Coleman: No. I didn't want to do that to my kids.

Police in Lintz' hometown of St. Petersburg, Florida, were contacted to check out Chris' story.

Detective Shannon Halstead got the call.

"So, we went from the station to go make contact with her thinking it was gonna be a quick, 20-minute interview and it ended up being very different," she said.

That's because the information Halstead gained from Lintz about the relationship was very different than what Chris Coleman was telling police in Illinois.

"She provided the Blackberry and the laptop computer, obviously, had files of videos and emails...relating to their relationship," Det. Halstead told Maher.

"Did you immediately step out and call St. Louis?"

"I did."

"And what did you say to them?"

"I said, 'I'm not positive, but I think this is his girlfriend,'" said Det. Halstead.

Armed with that information, Det. Barlow confronted Chris:

Det. Barlow: The one thing I did want to tell you right now, the St. Petersburg homicide unit is talking to Tara right now, and she showed us the pictures you sent her of you two, and we know you two have been having an affair.

"So was that a pretty big break for you guys?" Maher asked Det. Barlow.

"It was a -- important piece," he replied.

Investigators learned the couple had begun seeing each other in the fall of 2008, six months before the murders. During the affair, Chris would fly Lintz to meet him at locations where he was working for Joyce Meyer.

Det. Barlow: I know you guys went to Hawaii together. We pulled the Enterprise leasing cars receipt where you guys went to different trips together...

Chris Coleman: Well, I didn't think it was an affair.

Det. Barlow: You didn't think it was an affair?

Chris Coleman: No an affair is when you're like living with them and you plan to get married and everything.

"She had on her calendar -- a scheduled wedding to Chris Coleman, scheduled vacations, different accounts -- credit card accounts that they held together -- and I think she, honest to God, believed that he was going to leave his wife and two children," said Det. Halstead.

Chris' parents, Pastor Ron Coleman and his wife, Connie, were stunned to learn their son had an affair. They insisted it had nothing to do with the murders.

"He's always been a real gentle person-- kinda quiet," Connie Coleman told Maher.

"Is there any way there's a part of Chris that you don't know that could have been capable of this?" Maher asked.

"Not in my view," Ron Coleman replied. "...you couldn't put something around your kid's throat unless you're a monster. It's just not there. It's just not there."

While investigators believed Chris' affair with Tara Lintz was a strong motive for murder, there wasn't enough evidence to charge him. So after six long hours, Chris Coleman walked out a free man.

"It wasn't like we were wanting to believe that Chris is the one who did this. It's just that the evidence kept pointing to him," said Maj. Jeff Connor.

20 Photos The Coleman triple murder View the Full Gallery »




Every day, friends and neighbors are reminded of the beautiful lives that were stolen from them.

"The memorial -- in their subdivision is awesome. There's a bench and there's trees," Meegan Turnbeaugh explained. "...the community of Columbia Lakes got together and created that. ...So they wanted to do something positive. And they created a nice memorial."

Turnbeaugh says it's a fitting tribute - unlike the funeral service at Pastor Coleman's church.

"No friends, no family, no coaches. Nobody spoke about these three awesome people that were dead," she said.

In the days that followed the service, any sympathy for Chris Coleman was stripped away as news spread about his affair with Sheri's high school friend, Tara Lintz.

"Well, when the affair came out, and I had no idea, and I heard about it from someone else. I felt like every day I was just getting stabbed in the heart by these little pieces of information," said Kathy LaPlante.

Asked if she thought Coleman would be arrested, Turnbeaugh told Maher, "Yes. And I couldn't wait. I was nervous, to be honest with you."

The Major Case Squad felt that pressure.

"Obviously, in any case...you want to get the person responsible for it. But you want to get the right person," said Det. Justin Barlow.

But right away, there were red flags. Police were concerned when they found a basement window open and others unlocked.

"Here's a guy who's family is bein' threatened. They're gonna destroy his family while he's gone, and yet, that window was left unlocked, and it was obvious it was left unlocked, 'cause there was no forced entry," said Maj. Jeff Connor.

And remember that camera Det. Barlow installed in his house?

"We saw no strangers walking up and down the street. You saw no strange vehicles," said Chief Joe Edwards.

Chris had even installed his own surveillance cameras in his house.

"What about the surveillance equipment that was allegedly in the house?" Maher asked Maj. Connor.

"The recorder was missing," he replied.

"That's convenient."

"Yes."

An autopsy on Sheri revealed she fought violently with her killer, leaving her with two black eyes.

"Sheri was involved in an altercation before she was murdered. Those two boys weren't," said Chief Edwards.

Which made scratches found on Chris Coleman's arms all the more suspicious.

"When did you first notice the scratches on his arms?" Maher asked Det. Barlow.

"It was brought to my attention by people at the scene," he replied.

Det. Barlow: How are you doing?

Chris Coleman: Freezin.

Det. Barlow: Anything I can get you? You're freezing?

Police say Coleman tried to hide them during his interview.

"You can see on the video where he's asking for a blanket because he says he's cold. The only part of his body that he covers up are the -- you know, suspected-- marks on his arm," Barlow explained.

Det. Barlow: That'll work, won't it.

Chris Coleman: Yeah that's fine. As long as I can cover my arms. I'm freezing. [Covers his arms]

"I remember in the interview room it being very warm in there," Barlow told Maher.

"Did you think he was in shock?"

"No."

Chris later claimed he got those scratches the day before when he was removing a satellite dish from his roof.

Asked if there was any DNA found at the scene that would implicate him, Det. Barlow said, "I'll just say there wasn't any DNA found that didn't belong there. No boogeyman, no -- unidentified DNA, anything like that."

There was incriminating evidence found on Chris' phone and computers, starting with X-rated snapshots and videos that Tara Lintz and Chris had sent each other.

"It was a serious affair. He had written down every -- her measurements, her favorite things. Everything about her he had stored so he could, you know -- buy her things or do whatever for her," reporter Nick Pistor said. "By November 5th of 2008, Chris had written on his computer that that was the day Tara changed his life."

For police, that date would set off alarms bells.

"And how many days after that, then, did the threats start to show up?" Maher asked Pistor.

"About nine days after that," he replied.

Nine days. The Colemans insist it's all a coincidence.

"It's my understanding that he had written down, 'November 5th, the day Tara changed my life.' That they had exchanged promise rings... And that he had even written down the name of their first child were it to be a little girl," Maher commented to Chris' parents. "Is that true?"

"That's not Chris," said Ron Coleman.

"Honestly, I cannot imagine him doin' that," Connie Coleman said. "He just didn't really operate in that -- in that arena of -- emotions. He just didn't. He was just very calm and logical sense."

Chris' parents believe their son is innocent and that it was an intruder who killed his family and left hateful messages. In fact, Chris even voluntarily provided samples of his own handwriting to police.

Asked what was the most important piece of evidence at the crime scene, Maj. Jeff Connor told Maher, "At the crime scene, probably the handwriting on the walls."

But those samples would later come back to haunt Chris Coleman.

"The crime scene lab coming back and saying that the handwriting found on the wall matches up to the handwriting -- from the handwriting example that Christopher Coleman gave at the Columbia Police Department," said Det. Barlow.

Finally, two weeks after the murders, police felt they had enough to make their case. Christopher Coleman was charged with the first-degree murder of his wife and two sons.

"If it was another time they would have had pitchforks and lanterns in their hands," Pistor said of the public's reaction. "They were out for vengeance. They wanted this case solved and they wanted it solved immediately and they wanted him to be found guilty immediately."

"Were you there when he was arrested?" Maher asked Ron Coleman.

"Yes. It was at night," he replied. "...the worst scenario. ... we'd lost Garett and Gavin and Sheri and now Chris is gone."

Sheri's friends and neighbors were relieved, but angry at the toll it had taken on them and their children.

"I've talked to some of the moms, and the children in the community wonder if their dad could do the same thing," said LaPlante.

And investigators insist all this pain was caused by Chris Coleman's obsession.

"And all because of a woman," Maher commented to Maj. Connor.

"I believe that had a major part of it," he said.

20 Photos The Coleman triple murder View the Full Gallery »



"This crime was about greed, sex, selfishness, and narcissism. Chris Coleman decided he wanted a new life, and his family was in the way," Prosecutor Ed Parkinson told Maureen Maher. "He was obviously a monster who carried out a very sadistic plan."

By the time Chris Coleman went on trial in April 2011, prosecutor Ed Parkinson and his team had spent two years building their case.

"This was a huge case...this was, like, a 10,000 piece puzzle," said Chief Joe Edwards.

The murders of Sheri Coleman and her two young boys were a big case for local media, as well. All the pre-trial publicity prompted the judge to bus in a jury from a county an hour-and-a-half away.

"What was the biggest challenge for you as a prosecutor in this case?" Maher asked Parkinson.

"People who turn out to be jurors have to accept the fact that parents kill their kids...it's just hard to accept," he replied. "He just looked like a good guy."

"How do you get that much hatred for a child?" Chief Edwards asked.

As unthinkable as it was, at every corner, investigators had turned up more evidence against Coleman. Some of it came from Sheri's own friends, who were determined to have their day in court.

"What was it like waiting for the two years for the trial?" Maher asked Meegan Turnbeaugh.

"It was life changing," she replied, "and not for the better."

"How did you feel about testifying?"

"I was scared to death. I was like, 'I'm gonna do this for Sheri.'"

Coleman, sporting a new hairdo and a bulletproof vest at his trial, would hear those friends bolster the prosecutor's claim that he had lied about his marriage in his interrogation.

Chris Coleman: We talked about it a while back about possibly maybe splitting up or something... We started meeting with actually one of the pastors...

Det. Justin Barlow: Ok. From Joyce's church?

Chris Coleman: Yeah, things have been going awesome."

Coleman insisted that he and his wife had merely hit a few bumps in the road and were helped by counseling. Sheri told her friends a different story.

"She was in my room and she was crying and Chris wanted to leave her," Kathy LaPlante said. "And then he would start to say hurtful things like 'I never loved you.'"

But Sheri wasn't willing to let him go.

"And he would put on a face in front of the marriage counselor. And Sheri said when he got back home he'd yell at her and, you know, it would just be hell to pay," said LaPlante.

Prosecutor Parkinson says there's a reason Coleman wanted Sheri to be the one to divorce him.

"I believe he became so enraptured by Tara Lintz...but he couldn't get divorced in his own mind, because then he'd lose his $100,000 job a year with Joyce Meyer Ministries," he said. "They frown on divorce, if it's your fault."

Parkinson believes Coleman was hoping to make a clean break before anyone caught on about the affair. In a videotaped deposition, Joyce Meyer confirmed her ministry's zero tolerance of adultery.

"If he would have been having an adulterous affair, while he was still married, then it could have definitely affected his job," said Meyer.

Video: Joyce Meyer deposition excerpts

But eventually Sheri did find out her husband was having an affair with her best friend from high school.

"Sheri opened up her computer one night with a friend and said, 'Do you want to see the woman who's having an affair with my husband?' And showed images of Tara Lintz," said reporter Nick Pistor.

But Sheri still refused to get divorced. And something she said to her friend, Kathy LaPlante, will haunt her forever.

"When he came home, demanding a divorce...she told me that if anything happened to her, Chris did it," said LaPlante.

Several months later, Sheri and her sons were dead.

"What do you think the trigger was that made it May 5th?" Maher asked Parkinson.

"I think Tara was pressing him. I think he just got pushed into his own corner," the prosecutor replied.

"They had wedding dates planned. Chris had told Tara...that he was serving Sheri with divorce papers on May the 5th, the day of the homicides," Det. Justin Barlow told Maher.

"And had he ever filed divorce papers?"

"Not that we found, no," he replied.

"Did he ever speak to an attorney?"

"No."

After hearing all about this "other woman," the jury would finally get to meet her. It was the most anticipated moment of the trial: Tara Lintz making her entrance under police escort.

"She arrived at the courthouse...almost like a Hollywood star arriving somewhere," Pistor recalled. "It was a packed courtroom gallery."

Lintz testified that she and Coleman talked or texted, "all the time, constantly" and that they often professed their love for each other. When asked whether she and Coleman had plans to marry, her short answer spoke volumes: "The divorce had to happen first."

"Do you think that Tara had anything to do with the murders?" Maher asked Parkinson.

"No, I don't," he replied.

"And you don't think she had any idea that something was about to happen?"

"Nope. Not from any of the evidence, I don't believe that," said Parkinson.

But the prosecutor does believe Coleman's lust for Tara Lintz had everything to do with it. And to drive his point home, he showed the court the sexually explicit videos and photos the two sent each other.

"We said, 'Lord please help us.' We don't have to look at this, but please help us sit here for his sake that he doesn't feel we're ashamed of him," Connie Coleman told Maher.

Now, instead of embarking on an exciting new life and keeping his six-figure income, Chris Coleman was facing the death penalty.

20 Photos The Coleman triple murder View the Full Gallery »




Chris Coleman had a prominent local defense team at his side when he went on trial for his life. But John O'Gara and Bill Margulis had to admit they faced an uphill battle.

"The evidence was, although, all circumstantial, it was very overwhelming," said Margulis.

And at trial, one of the most critical pieces of evidence would be time of death. The prosecution maintains the three victims were killed hours before Coleman left the house to go to the gym.

"The bodies were stiff...they had rigor mortis...that everything pointed that they were dead by at least 3:00 in the morning," said reporter Nick Pistor.

"It could've been the whole case, quite frankly," said Prosecutor Ed Parkinson.

The defense insists that Sheri, Garett, and Gavin could have been killed that morning, during the hour and 10 minutes that Coleman was gone.

"You can use various formulas...the time of death is not an exact science," said Margulis.

As investigators kept building their case, something was troubling them about that trail of threatening letters and emails.

"It read: "If I can't get to Joyce then I will get to someone close to her," said Det. Justin Barlow.

"We didn't find anybody else who had received messages that were threatening to their family," said Chief Joe Edwards.

The prosecution's computer experts discovered there was good reason for that.

"Those threats were typed on his laptop," Parkinson told Maher.

"The email threats that came to him originated from..."

"...his own laptop," said Parkinson.

Those threats were sent from an account called destroychris@gmail.com. Defense attorney Bill Margulis insists someone else could have sent them.

"Anybody that had access to his computer, whether it was a co-worker or anybody else could've created that account," Margulis explained.

Investigators still had no so-called "smoking gun;" No DNA, no murder weapon and no eyewitness. But after analyzing the blood-red paint in those frightening messages on the walls, they believed they had something close to it.

"One can of that exact spray paint was purchased at a local hardware store. And the computerized signature said Christopher Coleman," said Edwards.

"You cannot paint that much without paint being somewhere on you," Ron Coleman said. "They literally cut him to the quick... he pulled his own hair out for them...there was not a trace of paint."

But if Coleman was the killer, it made a scene on the surveillance video -- recorded the afternoon before the bodies were discovered -- all the more chilling.

"It's a perfect suburban scene...he played catch with his son at the house," Pistor said. "...and then, the next morning, they're dead. ...It's unexplainable."

Chris Coleman did not take the stand.

In a case that was gut-wrenching for everyone involved, it turns out, the jury was no exception.

"I didn't wanna believe that he could do that," said juror Gina West.

"I cried myself to sleep," juror Olivia Shopinski said. "Absolutely unimaginable. I mean, there's just so much hate. It's just hatred spread everywhere."

The first vote inside that jury room was 7 to 5, not guilty, but not because they believed Coleman was innocent.

"I mean, we all thought he did it. Who else would have done it?" said jury foreperson Jonece Pearman.

But many of the jurors were troubled by the circumstantial nature of the case.

"You wanted factual, tangible evidence that said he did it?" Maher asked.

"Make 'em prove it," said West.

As the deliberations entered a second day, crowds gathered outside the courthouse... the tension mounting. Sheri's mother remained optimistic.

"We will get justice for my daughter and my grandsons," Angela DiCiccio told reporters outside the courthouse. "I have what they call the mother instinct. I am very confident."

Incredibly, it was the jurors own detective work that, they say, pushed them over the top. When they looked at the back of a picture of Chris Coleman and Tara Lintz kissing, they noticed it was taken on Oct. 21, 2008.

"I think actually what I said was, 'Oh my God.' And I said, 'What was the date that he said the affair started?'" Pearman recalled.

"Yeah, the dates didn't match," West affirmed.

"Which wasn't til November -- and the picture was created in October," Pearman continued. "October, way before they said they had been seeing each other."

"And what did that say to you?" Maher asked Pearman.

"That was something black and white in front of my face that said if he could lie about this, he's lying about everything," she said.

After 15 hours of deliberations, the verdict was guilty. The crowd outside the courthouse erupted in applause and cheers.

"I had never seen anything like what happened on the lawn of the courthouse that night," said Pistor.

The verdict was handed down on May 5, 2011, two years to the day that Sheri, Garett, and Gavin were found murdered.

"I walked outta the courtroom and the first words out of my mouth, 'Yes, we did it, we got justice," Angela DiCiccio said.

The judge sentenced Coleman to life in prison, in part, because the State of Illinois' repeal of the death penalty was just months away from taking effect.

"48 Hours Mystery" spoke to Chris Coleman by phone, because our cameras were not allowed inside the prison:

Maureen Maher: Did you kill your wife and your children?

Chris Coleman: No, absolutely not. I absolutely love my wife and my kids. And this, you know, it's not, it's not me.

Maureen Maher: How do you love your wife and be having an affair with one of her best friends?

Chris Coleman: Well...just because maybe I wasn't, you know, selfishly getting what I thought I...should be getting at home...from the physical side of things. But I still absolutely loved her.

Coleman denies he was planning to divorce Sheri to marry his mistress, Tara Lintz.

Maureen Maher: So why does Tara say that?

Chris Coleman: It was discussed on several different things...and you know, it was a conversation...but there was no specific plans or no dates...or nobody asking each other to be married or anything like that.

Maureen Maher: She also says that you told her that you were...serving divorce papers to Sheri.

Chris Coleman: You know, unfortunately, and I feel horrible about it... if I ever talk to Tara again, that would be something that I apologize to her about...that was a lie. ...I lied to Tara about that.

So if he didn't murder his family, who did?

Chris Coleman: I have absolutely no clue. Believe me, I have wracked my brain for two-and-a-half years trying to figure that part out. ...I just had to stop and give it to God, just release that and do my best to forgive that person and move on.

Video: Part 1 | Maher's prison phone call with Chris Coleman
Video: Part 2 | Maher's prison phone call with Chris Coleman

Forgiving and moving on has been difficult for Sheri's friends, who are still struggling to understand this incomprehensible crime.

"As a Christian, I feel like it's imperative that I forgive, because Jesus forgave me. And I want to forgive with all my heart," Kathy LaPlante said, choking up.

"What makes it so hard to do that?" Maher asked.

"Because they were so innocent," she said.

Sheri's family and friends want to ensure that she, Garett and Gavin are never forgotten. They've been raising money to help victims of domestic violence. And they hope to build a new Little League field and name it after those two young boys who loved to play ball.

How you can help remember Sheri and her boys

"The boys had their whole life ahead of them...they didn't deserve it," Vanessa Riegerix said. "This should've never happened. Shoulda never happened."

Video: Vanessa Riegerix and her son remember Sheri, Garett and Gavin

Sheri's family is suing Joyce Meyer Ministries. They claim the murders might have been prevented if the Ministries had investigated the threats more seriously.

Video: Hear more about the civil suit filed by Sheri's family

May 5 is the three-year anniversary of the murders of Sheri, Garett and Gavin Coleman.

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