Former First Lady Jill Biden was married once before meeting her current husband, former President Joe Biden. Her ex-husband is William Stevenson, who made headlines in early 2026 for his first-degree murder charges in connection with the death of his wife, Linda Stevenson.
Biden has not publicly commented on the news of her first husband’s criminal charges. Learn about Stevenson below.
When Was Jill Biden Married to Her Ex-Husband?
Biden was married to Stevenson from 1970 to 1975. At the time, Biden went by the name Jill Stevenson.
Why Did Bill Biden Divorce William Stevenson?
Jill said she and her first husband simply drifted apart. In her 2019 book, Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, the educator called their relationship a “mistake of youth.”
“Looking back, it may seem like that relationship was a mistake of youth,” Biden wrote in one excerpt. “But there was a time when I truly believed we were destined for each other. … He was charismatic and entrepreneurial and eventually started his own business.”
Biden continued, “We rented a sleek modern house. Suddenly, I wasn’t just a student, eating cheap food and living in student housing any longer—now I was a wife… My parents didn’t object; in fact, my parents loved him. And most importantly, I thought I had found a love like my parents’, a partnership built on loyalty and devotion.”
Calling Stevenson her “Prince Charming” at the time, Biden recalled thinking their relationship “would last forever.”
“For a moment, we were happy,” she pointed out, but they divorced because “it didn’t take long before we grew in different directions.”
“I tried to make the relationship work,” the former First Lady wrote. “I thought I could will our marriage back to life. But I had to separate what I thought my family should be from the reality of what this relationship was.”
Did William Stevenson Kill His Wife, Linda?
According to a news release, the New Castle County Police Department in Delaware announced that Stevenson had been indicted with first-degree murder in February 2026.
“On Monday, February 2, 2026, following an extensive weeks-long investigation into the death of 64-year-old Linda Stevenson, Detectives from the Division’s Criminal Investigations Unit, in coordination with the Delaware Department of Justice, presented the case to a grand jury,” the announcement read. “As a result, an indictment was returned by the New Castle County Superior Court charging 77-year-old William Stevenson with Murder in the First Degree.”
Authorities indicated that Stevenson was brought to New Castle County Police Headquarters, “where he was charged with the following crime: One felony count of Murder in the First Degree.” He was arraigned and brought to the Howard Young Correctional Institution “after failing to post $500,000.00 cash bail,” the news release read.
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