Curtis Lovelace: Life After A Not Guilty Verdict

Earlier this month, Quincy native Curtis Lovelace was found not guilty after the second trial that accused him of killing his first wife, Cory Lovelace. Curtis served as a prosecutor and before that played football for the University of Illinois. His former wife was also a college grad, and a stay-at-home mom for their four children. 

Cory died on Valentine's Day 2006. Curtis says she had seemed sick with the flu in the days before her death. He says both he and his wife abused alcohol and had a troubled marriage. "There was alcoholism in the home ... We loved each other, but it wasn't a perfect marriage and the alcoholism didn't help that," he tells us in this interview. He says Cory also battled an eating disorder. An autopsy was inconclusive but found that Cory had fatty liver disease, complications of which can be fatal.

Photo Credit: investigatinginnocence.org

The case was closed and it was assumed she had passed from natural causes. Curtis has since gone through two marriages, currently married to a woman named Christine who he had dated in high school. Eight years after Cory's passing, an investigator re-opened the case, and asserted that Curtis had suffocated her.

The first case resulted in a hung jury and mistrial. Since that trial and the one after it, there have been many twists and turns along the way. There were claims of abuse for instance, from Curtis's ex-wife Erika Gomez, which Curtis and his defense team have called blatantly erroneous. "Ms. Gomez started making accusations against me shortly after I filed for divorce ... She was barred from testifying in the first trial because the judge determined she didn't have an relevant evidence to offer," he said.

Gomez was on the witness stand during the second trial. In this interview, Curtis Lovelace tells us about what his life was like before his wife's death, during the trials, and what could potentially be next now that they are behind him.