Jessy Kurczewski, the Wisconsin woman who was convicted of fatally poisoning her friend with a chemical found in eye drops, was sentenced to spend the rest of her life behind bars on Friday.
Kurczewski, 40, will be eligible for parole after 30 years in a state prison, a judge ruled.
She was also sentenced for a pair of theft convictions, to 10 years each, but those sentences will be concurrent with her conviction of first-degree intentional homicide.
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At Friday’s sentencing hearing, a Court TV stream showed one of victim Lynn Hernan’s friends, James Kelieher, tell a judge that he wished Kurczewski could receive the death penalty and that he hopes she will “rot in hell.”
“The devil awaits you,” he added.
Kurczewski has maintained her innocence from the jump, reportedly testifying for nearly two hours and repeatedly insisting Hernan died by suicide.
“It is a lot to be accused and convicted of murder when I didn't do it,” she said through tears, according to WISN. “It won’t bring her back and it won't make her life any easier. You’re holding me responsible for what she did. Those are her decisions. Her choices. Her actions.”
Kurczewski was said to have stolen almost $300,000 from the 62-year-old beautician Hernan before poisoning her in 2018 and trying to stage the death as a suicide-by-overdose.
That plan nearly worked for Kurczewski, as local police initially said the death of Hernan, who was found unconscious in her home surrounded by pill bottles, was an overdose.
A probe into Kurczewski was launched, however, after a toxicological report found Hernan had a fatal dose of tetrahydrozoline, the main chemical in eye drops, and Kurczewski acted suspiciously with authorities.
That investigation uncovered the horrifying reality of the situation, with police claiming that Kurczewski—a down-on-her-luck gambling addict with a history of fraud—had duped Hernan out of thousands before convincing her to to make herself the sole heir to Hernan’s estate.
Kurczewski had told police that Hernan was acting weird in her final weeks alive, suggesting she may have been suicidal. Others, including neighbors, pushed back against that claim, saying they couldn’t believe Hernan would overdose on drugs, accidentally or purposefully.
Adding to the suspicions surrounding Kurczewski, authorities said she’d been repeatedly calling the local medical examiner inquiring about the toxicology report for Hernan.
In July 2019, a year after Hernan’s killing, cops executed a search warrant at the home Kurczewski shared with her boyfriend. Officers took her to jail on a probation hold linked to a past violation, and detectives interviewed her six times over the next 10 days.
In those interviews, detectives said Kurczewski told an array of stories, talking about the various “illegal and legal controlled substances” that she claimed Hernan “would use and abuse throughout her life.”
In that questioning, detectives told Kurczewski that they believed someone poisoned Hernan and staged the scene to make it appear as an overdose, to which Kurczewski “adamantly denied” killing Hernan, said a criminal complaint.
Kurczewski’s attempts to concoct an explanation for Hernan’s death appeared to only go downhill from there, with her suggesting Hernan must have staged her own suicide. Cops didn’t buy that explanation, and, shortly after, Kurczewski was arrested in connection to the slaying.
During her trial, prosecutors exposed Kurczewski’s crippling gambling addiction that they suggested led her to kill in order to maintain it. Prosecutors said Kurczewski stole $290,210 from Hernan, spending more than $50,000 in less than a year at two Wisconsin casinos.
Jurors reached an unanimous verdict to convict Kurczewski on Nov. 14 after just hours of deliberation. Her sentencing had been delayed because her attorneys dropped her as a client—something that became a theme for Kurczewski, who burned through eight attorneys since June 2021.
In putting Kurczewski away for life, Judge Jennifer Dorow reminded her that she won’t even be eligible for parole until she’s much older than what Hernan was at the time of her death.
