Children Watched As Man Fatally Shot Wife In Head: Guilty Plea

MONTGOMERY, IL — A Montgomery man pleaded guilty to fatally shooting his wife on Halloween 2022, according to officials at the Kane County State's Attorney's Office.

The 48-year-old Timothy Gordon pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Kane County Judge Clint Hull accepted the plea and set the man's court hearing for April 29 for motions and sentencing.

Gordon, of the 1300 block of Oak Ridge Lane, faces a sentence between 45 years to life imprisonment in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The sentence will include a mandatory enhancement of 25 years to life in prison since he used a gun to commit murder, officials said.

Just after noon on Oct. 31, 2022, Montgomery police responded to the residence in the 1300 block of Oak Ridge Drive to find 35-year-old Yajaira Gordon unresponsive and suffering from a gunshot wound, Patch reported. Officials said Timothy Gordon shot her once in the head, killing her.

Prosecutors explained in court that at the time, Timothy and Yajaira Gordon were married, but the wife had recently filed for divorce. They continued living in the same house on Oak Ridge Lane, Timothy in the basement and Yajaira, along with members of her family, on the second floor.

On Halloween, Timothy was angered after learning Yajaira potentially sought a court order to remove him from the home. Around noon, he returned to the house and went upstairs into a room where Yajaira sat at a desk with four others in the room — her mother and aunt as well as two young children, officials said.

When Timothy asked Yajaira why she was "doing this to him," saying he had nowhere to live, she replied, "Stop coming up here," prosecutors said. Timothy proceeded to fatally shoot her in her left temple with a .25-caliber Beretta handgun.

The man fled but was arrested a few hours later in Hinsdale, the gun next to him in the car, officials said.

Prosecutors said Timothy Gordon has a "significant" criminal history and laid out his previous sentences:

• Gordon was convicted of armed robbery and armed violence in a 1994 Cook County case and sentenced to prison.
• He was convicted of aggravated battery with a firearm in 2000 in Champaign County and sentenced to prison.
• He was convicted of a felony DUI in 2011 in Cook County.
• He was convicted of being a felon in possession of a weapon in 2017 in DeSoto County, Mississippi, and sent to the Mississippi Department of Corrections.

Gordon remains in custody at the Kane County jail, where he has been held since his arrest in lieu of $3 million bail.