A 73-year-old man who was convicted this fall of kidnapping and murdering a little girl more than a half-century earlier was expected to return to court Monday for sentencing.

Jack McCullough faces a maximum sentence of life in prison when he stands before a judge in Sycamore, the same town where 7-year-old Maria Ridulph's life ended in December 1957.

The sentencing in one of the oldest unsolved crimes in American history to go to trial will likely be watched by members of Ridulph's family and McCullough's family, as well as 63-year-old Kathy Chapman, who was playing with Maria on the last day of her life.