Jennifer Hudson in court as brother-in-law who killed three of her family members gets THREE life terms

The man convicted of gunning down the mother, brother and 7-year-old nephew of singer and Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson has been sentenced to three life terms in prison.

The singer and actress attended every day of the trial, and the sentencing of William Balfour today was no exception.

Balfour's defense filed an appeal shortly after he was convicted of first-degree murder in May, but it was denied.

According to TMZ, Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns told Balfour: 'Your soul is as barren as dark space.'

The sentencing came a little more than two months after a jury convicted Balfour in the October 24, 2008 shooting deaths of Hudson's 57-year-old mother Darnell Donerson, her 29-year-old brother Jason Hudson and her 7-year-old nephew Julian King.

Some of the jurors spoke to the press following their decision, saying that phone records were the tipping point amid a sea of circumstantial evidence. 

The evidence that helped seal Balfour’s fate was the testimony from a forensic investigator who told the court how he triangulated Balfour’s location using cell phone towers.

‘Once we were able to piece the timing together…we were able to put a timeline together,’ juror Paula Holcomb said, according to NBC Chicago.

'We realised that he could not be at two places at one time.'

Victimised: Jennifer Hudson, pictured performing earlier this month, was present for the sentencing of William Balfour in Chicago

Crushed: Michelle Davis-Balfour, center, mother of William Balfour, hides her face from photographers after her son was found guilty of the three murders

Prosecutors portrayed Balfour as a jealous estranged husband who often stalked Julia Hudson's house after he moved out in early 2008.

They said all his anger and jealousy erupted into violence shortly after he came into the house and spotted a gift of balloons there that were from Julia Hudson's new boyfriend.

 

They told jurors that after Julia Hudson left the house for her job as a bus driver the morning of October 24, Balfour returned with a .45-caliber handgun and shot Hudson's mother in the back, and then shot Hudson's brother twice in the head as he lay in bed.

Prosecutors said Balfour then drove off in Jason Hudson's SUV with Julian - Julia's son, whom she called Juice Box - and shot the boy several times in the head as he lay behind a front seat.

Opposites: Jennifer Hudson, right, holds her Academy Award while and convicted murderer William Balfour, is seen clutching a bottle of champagne

Weeping: A courtroom sketch shows Jennifer Hudson and sister Julia reacting to the closing arguments in the murder trial

The boy's body was found in the abandoned vehicle miles away after a three-day search.

The case against Balfour was built largely on circumstantial evidence, with witnesses testifying that the shootings were the final chapter of a story that was laid out to them by Balfour himself in alleged threats that he would kill Julia Hudson's family if she spurned him.

Julia Hudson was among those who testified about the alleged threats Balfour made against her family, telling jurors that he was so prone to jealousy that he even angrily complained when her young son kissed her.

'He said, `If you leave me, you will be the last to die. I'll kill your family first,' she testified.

In memoriam: Jennifer Hudson, left, is seen pictured with her murdered mom, centre, and sister Julia. It is captioned: 'my lovely mother, beautiful sister julia and i'

Victims: Jennifer Hudson's brother Jason Hudson, left, and nephew Julian King, right, were also killed in the brutal 2008 triple murder

Other witnesses told similar stories, with one saying that Balfour 'went on a rant' in August 2008 about his estranged wife in which he repeatedly threatened to kill the family. 

Another said he saw Balfour spying on his estranged wife from outside her house.

A former girlfriend of Balfour testified that Balfour told her he had shot and killed Hudson's family members and that she'd agreed to serve as his alibi if police inquired out of fear he would harm her.

Some of the most dramatic testimony came from Jennifer Hudson. The singer, who won an Academy Award for her role in the 2007 film 'Dreamgirls,' was the first witness to testify.

'I tried to keep my distance from William Balfour,' she told jurors when asked if she was ever friends with Balfour, whom she'd known since junior high school.

But Balfour's attorneys suggested that someone else committed a crime in the family's three-story house in Englewood on Chicago's South Side. 

Utter tragedy: The body of Jennifer Hudson's missing nephew was found in the back of a white SUV, three days after he had vanished

The way they told it, someone other than Balfour targeted the family because of alleged crack-cocaine dealing by Hudson's brother. 

But when it came time to present evidence, Balfour's attorneys only called two witnesses in 30 minutes of testimony and never presented any evidence to support that theory.

Even if the suggestion did not sway jurors, it did underscore the violence that plagues the family's small neighborhood on the city's South Side, a community where children grow up knowing the sound of gunfire, a sound so common that residents often don't even bother reporting it to cops.

A high school dropout and member of a street gang, Balfour had a long rap sheet for drug offenses and automobile theft when he was arrested and convicted for attempted murder and vehicular hijacking. After seven years in prison he was released in 2006.

A few months later he married Julia Hudson, at about the same time Jennifer Hudson was starring in 'Dreamgirls.' 

Balfour had a falling out with his wife and moved out of the house. Just months later he was back in jail, charged in the Hudson family slayings.

House of horrors: Memorials were placed outside the home of Darnell Hudson Donerson; she was found shot to death in the living room, and her son Jason was gunned down in a bedroom