Jeanette Sliwinski

Gorgeous, sexy Jeanette Sliwinski was a real attention grabber. The daughter of hard-working Polish immigrants, by the time she'd finished high school, her family had become solidly middle class, and she had blossomed into a striking beauty. She began working as a stripper in a local club and taking on modeling jobs to help finance her bachelor's degree in marketing. On the surface, Jeanette seemed confident, happy, and headed for success. But that facade was shattered on July 14, 2004. Jeanette blasted through the streets of Skokie at 70 mph in her cherry red Mustang convertible. The wild ride came to an end when her car slammed into a Honda Civic at a stoplight. Inside, three musician friends were heading to lunch. All three were killed instantly, while Jeanette came away with only a broken ankle. Prosecutors charged Jeannette with first-degree murder, and sought a life sentence. But when the case was tried before a judge in December, 2007, Jeanette's attorneys argued that she was mentally ill and needed to be in a hospital, not a prison. They told the judge that, in the months leading up to the crash, Jeanette had moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, but soon returned home to Illinois. There, she'd told friends and family that something was wrong with her, but she didn't know what. She'd sought help from several psychiatrists. Her mental illness had become destructive. She had a psychiatric appointment scheduled for the afternoon of July 14, but that appointment didn't come soon enough. She told police at the scene of the crash that she had been trying to kill herself when she caused the accident. She insisted that she'd never intended to kill anyone else. Prosecutors said it didn't matter who she'd wanted to kill; what mattered was that she had gotten behind the wheel of the Mustang with the intent to kill - and had succeeded. The judge agreed that Jeanette was mentally ill, but still found her guilty of the lesser charge of reckless homicide. He sentenced her to eight years in prison. With credit for time served, she will be out in four years.