The Monroe County state's attorney filed paperwork late today announcing his intent to seek the death penalty against Chris Coleman, according to the county's circuit clerk.

“This doesn't come as a surprise,” said William Margulis, a lawyer representing Coleman. “We've been getting ready for this.”

Police arrived at the Coleman home in Columbia on May 5 to check on the family's welfare after Christopher Coleman had called police from a gym. He had said he was alarmed that he couldn't reach his family, police said.

Police arrived shortly before 7 a.m. and entered the home through an open basement window. Inside, police say they saw obscene messages spray painted in red on the home's walls. In the upstairs bedrooms, Sheri, 31, and sons Garett, 11, and Gavin, 9, were found strangled.

Christopher Coleman, 32, has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Authorities allege he staged the deaths after sending anonymous threats to his family shortly after he began a sexual relationship with a friend of Sheri Coleman's in Florida. The two planned to marry next year, according to search warrants.

Coleman, who is the former security chief for televangelist Joyce Meyer, said he was getting threats related to his work for the ministry, police said.

The death penalty announcement will give Coleman access to the Illinois Capital Litigation Fund, provided he can convince a judge he is indigent.

The fund was set up in 2000 to provide better representation, after revelations that innocent people were sometimes being sentenced to death. Last year, a Post-Dispatch investigation revealed widespread abuse of the fund. The newspaper documented cases in which out-of-state private investigators charged taxpayers hundreds of dollars an hour for their time driving or flying. One investigator's travel time alone cost the fund more than $11,000.

In one instance documented by the paper, a defense team charged the fund more than $10,000 to build a mock-up of a crime scene for trial, then never used it.

Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill on Thursday to overhaul the system in response to the Post-Dispatch disclosures.