Lemak found guilty of killing her three children

Associated Press WriterWHEATON, Ill. (AP) -- A DuPage County jury found Marilyn Lemak guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday for killing her three young children in her Naperville home.

The jury, which deliberated about nine hours, rejected alternate verdicts of guilty but mentally ill or not guilty by reason of insanity. The emotional case lasted three weeks.

"I was convinced these children died at the hands of their own mother as an act of murder and revenge," DuPage County State's Attorney Joseph Birkett said. "Justice has been served in this case."

Lemak did not react visibly as the verdicts were read pronouncing her guilty of murdering each child.

"We're devastated," William Morrissey, Lemak's father, said afterward.

Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty against Lemak. DuPage County Judge George Bakalis will sentence her later.

Prosecutors said Lemak was sane when she killed her children on March 4, 1999, hoping to punish her physician husband, David Lemak, over their pending divorce and because he had started seeing another woman. Lemak fed the children -- Thomas, 3, Emily, 6, and Nicholas, 7 -- peanut butter laced with antidepressants and then smothered them with her hands.

Lemak pleaded innocent and attorneys used an insanity defense, arguing that the killings were the work of a delusional woman and the culmination of a downward spiral of depression. They said she felt David Lemak had abandoned the family and that she wanted to kill the children and herself so that they could be reunited in a happier place.

"One of my first thoughts was why didn't she take me," David Lemak, who has remarried, said after the verdict was read.

Asked if his ex-wife's execution would bring him some comfort, Lemak said he wasn't sure.

"I don't know that I have an answer. I've certainly thought about it considerably. I would say, first of all, justice isn't served in this world."

When a reporter asked what he wanted people to remember of his children, a teary-eyed Lemak held up a photo of them handed to him by his mother and said, "Certainly, one of my regrets is that I won't have a chance to see what kind of impact on the world they could have made."

Prosecutors ridiculed the defense during the trial, saying it had come up with theories that amounted to "post-occurrence psychobabble." It wasn't until some time after the killings and a few therapy sessions that Lemak came up with her insanity defense, saying she wanted to kill her children and herself so they could be reunited in a better place, prosecutors said.

"What a bunch of baloney that is," Assistant State's Attorney Jane Radostits said during closing arguments. "There are three coffins and none of them are for her."

Birkett led the prosecution team in a rare courtroom appearance. During closings, he said Lemak was a "methodical, controlling, manipulative woman" who clearly knew what she was doing when she killed her children in their Naperville home nearly three years ago.

"These murders were not the byproduct of mental illness or depression (but the actions of) a very angry, very jealous and very manipulative woman," Birkett said.