Trigg County Circuit Judge Jamus Redd brought a decisive end to a three-year wait for a verdict Wednesday morning, when he ordered southern Illinois man Harold Jett to serve 35 years in prison without parole for the 2021 Cadiz murder of his aunt, Mary Dullenty.
A cold, driving rain falling outside the Justice Center, warm tears were shed inside, and Redd lauded the efforts of both the Commonwealth and Jett’s defense team, Amie Martinez and Rick Lawniczak.
As Redd issued the sentence, Jett simply nodded “yes” in acknowledgment, while Martinez and Lawniczak each placed a hand on his shoulders.
Prior to sentencing, Martinez read aloud a letter penned by Jett’s niece, 30-year-old Christiana Jett, beseeching Redd to consider her uncle’s mental issues and state of mind during the time of the murder.
An aggrieved granddaughter, and Dullenty’s first grandchild, Savana Marie Cotton urged that it hurts no less now than it did then — when she had to learn first-hand how peroxide is the best agent to clean up a bloody crime scene on Hilltop Street.
Dullenty’s death, she added, forever changed her family’s demeanor.
Under the advisement of his counsel, Jett pleaded guilty to his charges at the end of August in Lyon County Circuit Court. And it is there where, pursuant to state law, the Commonwealth recommended 35 years without probation or shock for speeding, first-degree fleeing or evading police, first-degree burglary and first-degree strangulation.
Two months after Dullenty was discovered that October 2021, dead of blunt force trauma, Jett was indicted. Earlier that same day, the Trigg County Sheriff’s Department had responded to a disturbance on the South Road, where Jett was accused of shooting a vehicle during an altercation.
For the past three years, Jett has been incarcerated at the Christian County Jail under a $1 million cash bond.
Cotton’s victim impact statement:
