Murderer sent to prison again after serving time for killing wife in Belleville
For the second time since being released from prison after fatally stabbing his wife in a west Belleville pub in 1990, Timothy Hayden has been sent to state prison.
In his latest case, Hayden, 65, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a weapon in Bond County and was given a five-year prison sentence, according to court records.
Hayden was being held in the Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro on Wednesday, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.
Hayden previously was in state prison until January 2018 on a first-degree murder conviction for killing Tracy Hayden on July 27, 1990, in the former Dundee’s restaurant and pub at 6401 W. Main St. in Belleville.
He was released from state prison after serving half of his 55-year sentence imposed after a jury found him guilty of murder. Under current state law, a person convicted first-degree murder must serve 100 percent of a sentence.
Hayden subsequently was arrested in January 2019 on a parole violation charge on the murder sentence and returned to state prison. He then was released from state prison in January 2020.
It was another Bond County case that was linked to Hayden’s parole violation on the murder sentence.
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board revoked Hayden’s parole in March 2019 because he violated two conditions of his parole agreement: He had contact with a Bond County woman while she had an emergency order of protection against him and he did not get counseling for substance abuse, anger management, mental health and domestic violence.
The woman who was granted the order of protection told police that Hayden had shattered a glass door on her after they had returned to his home from a Litchfield bar in January 2019. The woman, who told the News-Democrat she did not have to go to the hospital for a cut on her right hand, told police that Hayden would not give her phone back.
Before he was charged in his wife’s murder in 1990, Hayden had been arrested 35 times and faced over 50 offenses, including four cases involving Tracy Hayden.
Tracy Hayden, who was 29 and the mother of two children, had filed for divorce about seven weeks before she was killed.
Three weeks before her murder, Tracy Hayden testified during a hearing that her husband had threatened her with a knife and she feared for the safety of her two children. She left him on May 31, 1990, and went to a shelter for women “because he had threatened me if anyone broke up this family, he’d kill them and anyone who had anything to do with it,” according to court records cited by the News-Democrat.
In 2011, the domestic violence center operated by the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office was named after Tracy Fogarty, using her maiden name.
Bond County weapon charge
In the most recent case, Timothy Hayden was arrested in July 2024 in Bond County on a charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon.
He was represented by attorney Alicia Granito in his sentencing hearing. Granito could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Circuit Judge Christopher J.T. Bauer handed down the five-year prison sentence on Sept. 16 after Hayden pleaded guilty to the weapon charge. Bauer also gave Hayden six years of mandatory supervised release.
Four days before his sentencing, Hayden had been considered mentally “unfit” to stand trial, according to Bond County court records.
In February, Bauer found there was a “bona fide doubt” about Hayden’s ability to stand trial. Court records show Bauer noted on June 26 there was a “substantial probability” that Hayden could be able to stand trial after receiving treatment that was ordered.
On Sept. 16 the case was “called by agreement” and Bauer accepted Hayden’s guilty plea “pursuant to negotiations.”
The county’s online records do not list details of the allegations against Hayden and Bond County State’s Attorney Dora Mann could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
State prison records show Hayden is eligible for parole on Jan. 15, 2027, which would be nearly 37 years after Tracy Hayden was killed.
