A woman found guilty of murdering and dismembering her Rogers Park landlord will spend 58 years behind bars, a Cook County judge ruled Wednesday.
A jury in April found Sandra Kolalou, 38, guilty of murder, dismembering a body and aggravated identity theft in the 2022 death of Frances Walker, 69. Police found parts of Walker’s body in a freezer in her home in October 2022. Prosecutors said neighbors had heard Kolalou and Walker arguing the night before her death, and that Walker had planned to evict Kolalou.
Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Daniel Crone told Judge Ursula Walowski on Wednesday that Walker’s torso and the body of her pet dog were still at the bottom of Montrose Harbor and requested a harsh sentence for Kolalou, citing her “threats of violence against anyone she comes into contact with.”
“She is a dangerous person,” Crone said.
Walowski said while delivering her sentence that the case was “something out of a horror movie.” She sentenced Kolalou to 50 years for murder, six years for dismemberment and two years for aggravated identity theft, to be served consecutively.
“The nature and circumstances of this case are quite aggravating, for a human being to do this to another human being,” she said.
Kolalou’s attorney Sean Brown said he would appeal the jury’s decision while his client denied responsibility for Walker’s death.
“God as my witness, I never harmed Fran,” she said.
But in her sentencing, Walowski cited testimony and reports from a set of charges against Kolalou related to her conduct while in the Cook County Department of Corrections, including several reports of discipline for verbal abuse toward officers and a fight that left a correctional officer with a broken ankle.
In one of those cases, Kolalou allegedly told a jail guard, “I’m going to do you like I did my landlord.” In another report, Kolalou allegedly told a guard she was in jail for murder and warned that guard to look her up.
Brown and Kolalou herself both argued that employees at the Cook County sheriff’s office were personally biased against her, but Walowski said her takeaway from the testimony was the sense that Kolalou lacked “a sense of remorse or potential for rehabilitation.”
Walker’s friends and family watched the proceedings from two rows near the front of a courtroom in the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. Many wore pink, her favorite color.
Several of them delivered statements detailing the way Walker’s death had affected their lives. Her niece, Katerina Lee Walker, said she had withdrawn from most social life in the wake of her aunt’s death.
“I couldn’t be where happiness was,” she said. “People were moving around me, but I couldn’t bring myself to move.”
Her niece said she didn’t think she would be able to walk into a church again without crying from memories of Walker, a well-loved accompanist and musician with degrees in music from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University.
Walker’s sister, Benita, said Frances had played piano at her wedding, and had promised to play at Benita’s funeral, too.
“Now that will never happen,” she said.
Her sister also spoke about how they were also the co-guardians to their oldest brother, Stan, who has a mental disability. Their sister-in-law, Maggie, described Stan Walker had responded to the news of Frances’ death by pacing back and forth, “as though looking for her.”
“Stan will never understand why (Frances) isn’t visiting him anymore,” she said. “We don’t really understand either.”
Just after the verdict, Walker’s family thanked those who had supported them throughout the legal process and said they were satisfied with the sentence, although they rejected the condolences Kolalou had offered in the courtroom.
“I feel that finally, justice was served for my sister,” Benita Walker said.
“We hope to move on and heal,” Maggie Walker said.
