8-May-17 – A life insurance policy from more than 40 years ago may be front and center in the murder trial of a former Chicago condo attorney. The insurance policy, prosecutors hope, could show a motive for Dr. Donnie Rudd to kill his wife, Noreen Rudd, in 1973.

The State of Illinois will file a pre-trial motion to allow the policy as evidence, according to Rudd’s attorney. “I will of course oppose it as it is irrelevant,” says Timothy Grace (left), “as Mr. Rudd did not even know he was a beneficiary to the policy.”

The cold case was reopened in 2012 after investigators doubted Rudd’s claim that his wife died in a traffic accident. They now suspect Rudd struck Noreen in the head and staged her death to look like an accident.

Rudd says he learned of the insurance policy from his mother-in-law after his wife died. He suspects Noreen obtained the policy to cover expenses in the event she died of rheumatic fever, a disease she once had and was concerned would recur.

Rudd says he did not even know of the rheumatic fever. Said Rudd (right), “She was hiding that from me, I guess, waiting to tell me some other time.”

Rudd, who co-wrote the 1983 amendments to the Illinois Condominium Property Act, was released from custody last September after posting a $4 million bond. A status hearing is scheduled for June.