Lovejoy Sentenced to Life in Prison For Stepdaughter's Murder

Convicted murderer , 44, was sentenced Tuesday to natural life in prison without the possibility of parole for the March 27, 2004 murder of his 16-year-old stepdaughter Erin Justice, according to DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert B. Berlin.

Judge Kathryn Creswell sentenced Lovejoy on Tuesday for the murder in which he forced Justice, a Waubonsie Valley High School student, at knifepoint to drink lethal amounts of over-the-counter medication. Lovejoy then bludgeoned the girl on the head with a blunt object, stabbed her, slit her wrists and drowned her in the bathtub. Her mother discovered the body later that morning when she arrived home from work, according to the news release.

Lovejoy, formerly of Naperville, was convicted of the crime and then sentenced on Feb. 15, 2007 to death row, but the Illinois Supreme Court overturned his conviction.

“Today, justice was served for Erin Justice, a beautiful 16 year-old girl with a promising future ahead of her,” Berlin said in a news release. “This case has always been about our system of justice and what message we send when a child rapist decides to murder his victim, the only witness against him, in order to prevent her from testifying against him and sending him back to jail. Laurence Lovejoy wanted to silence that witness. He wanted to make sure that Erin never got the chance to tell the story of what he did to her. The evidence in this case however, spoke for Erin. Thanks to the courage of the jury and the conviction of Judge Creswell, the message that we as a society send to child rapists and murderers came through loud and clear. We are a society that will not tolerate such evil.  We will not tolerate such malice.  And we, as a society, will not tolerate the likes of Laurence Lovejoy.”