Kenosha Man To Be Sentenced For Ex-Wife's Gurnee Murder

LAKE COUNTY, IL — The Lake County State's Attorney's Office announced Thursday a sentencing date for a Kenosha, Wisconsin man convicted last year for the murder of his ex-wife in her Gurnee home during September 2015. According to a release from the state's attorney's office, Lake County Associate Court Judge George Strickland set 47-year-old David Brocksom's sentencing date for 1:30 p.m., Nov. 7 at the Lake County Courthouse. The date was set after Strickland denied a defense motion to reconsider a previous ruling Thursday morning, according to the release.

Brocksom faces 45 years to life in the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) after a Lake County jury found him guilty on Nov. 15, 2018 of home invasion and murder for killing his ex-wife, Beata Brocksom, according to the release. The state's attorney's office said evidence showed the man took his two children to a resort in the Wisconsin Dells before leaving the resort in the middle of the night and drove to his ex-wife's Gurnee home. Evidence also showed Brocksom snuck into Beata's home around 4 a.m. with the motive to kill her and try to make her death appear to be a suicide, but Beata awoke up and struggled to get a gun her ex-husband brought inside the home, the release added.

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During the struggle over the gun, Beata was shot in the throat and escaped the home through a window, evidence showed, according to the state's attorney's office. However, she was found dead hours later in bushes on the property, officials added.

Brocksom left the home, drove to his parents' house in Kenosha, and then arranged to have his children picked up from the hotel in the Dells before turning himself in to police, the release said.

Brocksom sought orders of protection against his wife twice in 2013, according to online court records, and filed for divorce in 2011.