A Deerfield man who pleaded guilty last month to murdering his wife was sentenced Thursday to 65 years in prison, Lake County prosecutors said.
Attorneys for the state and Gary Kamen presented an agreed order to Judge Daniel Shanes that Kamen should serve the 65-year term. In his guilty plea, Kamen also admitted to killing his wife, Karyn, in a brutal and heinous manner. That made him eligible for a sentence longer than the usual 60-year maximum term for first-degree murder.
In agreeing with the sentencing order, the judge said the sentence was appropriate.
“In days like this, in court, there are no winners. Everyone loses. Your children, by your hand, lost their mother, and you lost,” Shanes told Kamen.
Karyn Kamen was 53 when her husband handcuffed, sexually assaulted and stabbed her in their Deerfield home in September 2018. Authorities who responded to the couple’s residence transported her to the hospital, but she died a day after the attack
Authorities recovered a broken knife handle and bloody blade in a master bedroom sink. Gary Kamen has since been held in the Lake County jail.
According to court motions filed in the case, Kamen told authorities that he had been drinking and might have taken a sleeping pill on the day of the attack, and that when he awoke, he found his wife in a pool of blood.
More Top Picks Best Gaming Laptops
“The sentence in this case accounts for the heinous nature of the crime. The community remained safe from Mr. Kamen while he remained in custody for nearly four years, and we know the family has some relief that this part of their journey is finally over,” State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said Thursday.
“We will continue to support them in any way that we can,” he added.
Friends and relatives recalled Karyn Kamen as an energetic, involved mother to her two sons, and a longtime substitute schoolteacher who brimmed with enthusiasm, according to 2018 news reports.