Jennifer Hudson Takes The Stand, An emotional Jennifer Hudson took the stand at the trial of the man accused of killing her mother, brother and nephew Monday — testifying she warned her sister not to marry the man standing trial for the horrific 2008 murders.

The Academy Award-winning actress from Englewood told jurors she didn’t want her sister, Julia, to marry William Balfour.

“I would tell Julia over and over again not to marry William,” Hudson said. “None of us myself, my mother, or my brother, we did not like how he treated her and I didn’t like how he treated my nephew.”

Judge Charles Burns sustained numerous objections when Hudson told jurors she didn’t want her sister marrying Balfour.

Hudson took the stand, saying: “My name is Jennifer Kate Hudson. I’m an actress and a singer.”

During her testimony, Hudson, wearing no makeup, wept and used tissues to dry her tears.

She told jurors she was so close to her mother, Darnell Donerson, that they slept in the same bed until age 16. After moving out, they spoke every day, she said. On Monday, she identified a photo of her mother, saying: “That’s my mommy.”

The morning the bodies were found, Hudson was in Tampa, Fla., with her fiancee. When she woke up, something was amiss.

“I noticed that — I’m looking to see the text from my mom and it wasn’t any,” she said. “I kept sitting there wondering, like that’s strange. That was the first thing I said, ‘My mom didn’t text me.’ ”

Her text back an hour later got no answer either.

“Maybe she’s busy, I don’t know. I knew she would get back to me, you know, so I remember falling back to sleep. And when I woke up, that’s when I got the news.

“My sister called my fiance’s phone. I remember it like yesterday, obviously. And he couldn’t understand what she was saying because she was so hysterical and I grabbed the phone form him and that’s when she told me.”

At about 1:15 p.m, the judge called for a break in the trial. Jennifer Hudson went back to the gallery and sat with her fiancee. The trial was set to resume at 2:30 p.m., Central Daylight Time.

Earlier in the day, a prosecutor said Balfour threatening the family shortly after he left the family home in 2008.
The prosecutor said during opening statements in William Balfour’s murder trial Monday that he was not making idle threats against his estranged wife’s family members.

“Julia, if you leave me I’ll kill you,” prosecutor Veryl Gambino said, quoting Balfour’s alleged threat to Jennifer Hudson’s sister, Julia Hudson. “I’ll kill your family first and then I’ll kill you.”

Balfour has pleaded not guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the October 2008 slayings.
Prosecutors say he became enraged that Hudson’s sister, his estranged wife, had begun dating someone else.

A gift of balloons is what sent Balfour into such a jealous rage that he shot dead her family in a horrific act of vindictiveness in the home where the Hollywood star grew up.

The estranged husband of Hudson’s sister, Balfour believed the balloons he saw at the Hudson home came from Julia Hudson’s new boyfriend; driving away for her job as a school bus driver, she glimpsed Balfour in her mirror still lingering outside, prosecutors have said.

They say Balfour went back inside the three-story house around 9 a.m. and used a .45-caliber handgun to kill Hudson’s mother, 57-year-old Darnell Donerson, in the living room — then shot her 29-year-old brother, Jason Hudson, twice in the head as he lay in bed.

He allegedly drove off in Jason Hudson’s SUV with Julia Hudson’s son, Julian King, inside. Authorities say he shot the boy nicknamed Juice Box in the head as he lay behind a front seat. His body was found in the abandoned vehicle miles away after a three-day search.

There are no known witnesses to the slayings, and it’s unclear what physical evidence exists, be it fingerprints or DNA. Prosecutors say gunshot residue was found on the steering wheel of Balfour’s car. But the defense says and other evidence is circumstantial.

A gun, which Balfour allegedly stole months before from Hudson’s brother, was recovered in a lot near where the SUV was found and will be presented as the murder weapon.

Establishing motive may pose less of a challenge.

A high-school dropout and one-time Gangster Disciple known by the gang name “Flex,” Balfour allegedly threatened to kill the Hudson family at least two dozen times, starting earlier in 2008 when he moved out of the house, lead prosecutor James McKay has said.

Court records indicate the now 34-year-old Julia Hudson’s divorce from Balfour was finalized last year.

If convicted of at least two of the murder counts, the 30-year-old Balfour, on parole at the time of the killings after serving nearly seven years for attempted murder and vehicular hijacking, would face a mandatory life sentence.

Burns has instructed jurors to set aside any sympathy for Hudson and decide a verdict strictly according to testimony. The panelists include a teacher, a trucker and two people who have had close relatives murdered.

Prosecutors have said Balfour claimed he wasn’t near the Hudson home at the time of the killing, but they are expected to introduce cellphone records that allegedly prove he was in the area when two teenage girls who live nearby heard gunshots.

The witnesses didn’t immediately report the shots to police because the sound of gunfire isn’t uncommon in the impoverished, crime-ridden Englewood neighborhood, according to court filings.

The trial is being held in a nearly century-old, oak and granite courtroom where several TV legal dramas have been filmed. It’s the same courtroom where R&B singer R. Kelly was acquitted on child pornography charges in 2008.