Man sentenced to 78 years for torturing, killing "girlfriend"

A Joliet Township man, who tortured, then killed his girlfriend after he allegedly stole just over $100 from her was sentenced to 78 years in prison. Will County Judge Carla Alessio Policandriotes sentenced him to 78 years. 58 years were for murder, 12 years were for arson, and 8 years were for concealing a body.

Describing the torture-murder as "incomprehensible," Policandriotes called Hall "a danger to society."

Bailey died in July 2005 after Hall hit her in the head with a clothes iron, slammed her fingers in a door hinge, tied her up with speaker wire and put her in his bathtub.

Hall, an alleged drug dealer and aspiring rap musician with a history of physically abusing women, tired to conceal the murder by burning Bailey's body on a wood pile in rural Kankakee County and setting fire to his Preston Heights-area apartment, records show.Hall was angry because Bailey allegedly had taken between $100 and $120 from him, according to testimony.

Will County State's Atty. Jim Glasgow credited prosecutors Domenica "Dede" Osterberger, Jessica Colon-Sayre and Chris Messina for "expert trial work" that led to Hall's conviction and lengthy sentence. Glasgow also praised the Will County Sheriff's Department for a first-rate investigation.Prior to sentencing, Policandriotes read an anguished victim-impact statement written by Rose Bailey's mother, Deborah, who sat in the audience, as she had during Hall's trial for the murder of her youngest daughter."

When I learned of Rose's suffering and death, I could not be consoled. To find out that you don't even have your daughter's body to bury is more painful than I can explain here and now," the mother said.

Hall declined to speak on his own behalf. Defense attorneys, searching for a clemency issue, argued that their client had been respectful during his weeklong trial and that incarceration would be a hardship for his seven children.Policandriotes pointed out that Hall actually had fathered nine children, but only knew the names of seven. She said he had routinely dodged making child support.