Murdered Woman's Family, Friends Cheer Law's Signing

Batavia resident Patricia Rosenberg won a painful but gratifying victory July 21 when Gov. Pat Quinn signed House Bill 263, better known as Andrea’s Law. The new law, named after Rosenberg’s daughter, Andrea Wills, requires first-degree murderers living in Illinois to register their addresses in a state database for 10 years after they leave prison.

State Rep. Dennis Reboletti (R-46th, Elmhurst) was chief sponsor of the bill.

“Thank you all so much for your phone calls, e-mails and overall support through this entire process,” Rosenberg posted on Facebook shortly after the signing. “Without Johnna Kelly and Rep. Reboletti, there would have been no beginning and without all of you, there would have been no end. We have been touched by an angel and I look forward to the day that we are together again. I love you, Andrea.”

Michelle Felde was Wills' college roommate when the murder took place.

“We are so happy about Andrea’s Law going into effect,” Felde said.

Felde, Reboletti and state Sen. John Milner (R-28th, Carol Stream) have worked with Rosenberg for several months to draw up and get Andrea’s Law approved.

Once the Illinois State Police set up the online registry, state residents can access the registry and find the names and addresses of any convicted murderers living in their community, much as they now can search the state’s convicted sex offender registry.

The registry would not have prevented Andrea Wills’ murder, since her slayer, ex-boyfriend Justin J. Boulay of St. Charles, had not been convicted of a murder when he killed her in 1998. But it could prevent other murderers from killing again, Rosenberg said.

“Making murderers accountable for their crimes for 10 years after they re-enter society might give possible victims time to grow and protect themselves,” she said. “Murderers have a propensity to attack again, just like sex offenders have the propensity to molest again. And if this law had existed earlier, my daughter’s murderer would be on a registry now. My goal is to touch as many people as possible through this process because her death has to mean something.”

Boulay, one of the last convicted murderers in Illinois to escape the 1998 Truth in Sentencing law through a legal technicality, was released on parole last November after serving half his 24-year sentence. He now lives in Hawaii with his wife Rachel, a college professor whom he married while in prison.

Though Hawaii does not have a formal registry for convicted murderers, the publicity Rosenberg’s campaign generated over Boulay’s move there after serving just 12 years in prison for the murder did prompt officials of that state to ban Boulay from any college campus, even the one at which his wife works; require him to wear an electronic ankle bracelet; and require him to meet his parole officer weekly instead of monthly.