Jennifer Hudson's Family Murder Trial Date Set

It’s been more than three years since Jennifer Hudson’s mother, brother and nephew were murdered in Chicago.

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A judge has finally set the date for the trial pertaining to the October 2008 murders.

Jury selection in the trial of William Balfour will take place on April 9, as announced by Cook County Judge Charles Burns. Balfour, the estranged husband of Jennifer Hudson's sister, is charged with first-degree murder.

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Hudson’s mother Darnell Hudson, 57, and brother Jason Hudson, 29, were found dead in the family’s home in Chicago on Oct. 24, 2008. Her nephew, Julian King, was found several days later in a car on the city’s West Side. Prosecutors allege that Balfour shot the family in a jealous rage after he found out that Hudson’s sister was seeing someone else.

The American Idol finalist, who released a book titled I Got This: How I Changed My Ways and Lost What Weighed Me Down, has only recently started talking about the devastating event.

In November, Hudson said in an interview that she was almost in Chicago at her family's home during the time of the murders, but that an spontaneous trip may have saved her life. She decided to attend fiancé David Otunga's fight in a World Wrestling Entertainment match.  

"He wanted me to come out to Florida with him instead of going to Chicago," she told the magazine of Ortunga (with whom she has a son, David Jr.). "I flew out to see him; that's why I'm still here. That's one of the things that saved my life. Because I could have been home with my mum then."