What is the current state of the law on admitting evidence of sexual abuse in the context of a murder case?

^4. People v. Foster (Ill. 1979) 392 N.E.2d 6 supports the trial court's decision to admit the evidence. There, the defendant had lived with the decedent and her four children for approximately two and a half years. The decedent's 12-year-old son, solomon, testified the defendant had forced him to engage in homosexual acts. An acquaintance of the defendant claimed the defendant told her he was distressed by the possibility that the decedent would move to California without him, taking solomon away from him. The appellate court held the sexual abuse evidence was "relevant [and] central to the establishment of defendant's motive for killing Solomon's mother, because that testimony tended to establish a reason why defendant would fear the decedent's taking Solomon away from him . . . ." (Id. at p. 374.)