A Cook County judge denied bail for a 19-year-old south suburban man charged with murder in the shooting death of a Chicago man during a private handgun purchase gone bad, authorities said.
Justin Thomas stood with his fingers clasped behind his back with several relatives looking on as prosecutors laid out their murder case against him Saturday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building related to the March 16 slaying of Darius Moorman, 21.
Thomas, of the 1700 block of Sylvan Court in Flossmoor, was also barred from contacting the surviving witness and was scheduled to return to court next week.
The shooting occurred at the end of a supposed deal to sell a firearm to a companion of Moorman, Cook County prosecutors told the court.
Moorman had driven his companion, whom prosecutors called a witness, to the 12300 block of South Lowe Avenue in the West Pullman neighborhood where the companion would pay $500 in exchange for the weapon, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Christina Kye.
Moorman’s companion and Thomas’ alleged accomplice used the Facebook Messenger app to set up the exchange, she said. But after Moorman’s companion handed over the cash, Thomas’ accomplice got out of the vehicle briefly, but returned to the vehicle with Thomas moments later. Both men then pulled handguns and ordered Moorman and his companion not to move, prosecutors said.
But when both Moorman and his companion moved, one of the weapons fired, striking Moorman in the shoulder, Kye said. Thomas’ accomplice immediately fled the vehicle, but Moorman put the car into gear and crashed into another vehicle one block away authorities said.
Thomas, who was still inside the vehicle, took $20 from Moorman’s companion and ran away on foot, Kye said.
Moorman, of the 9600 block of South Van Vlissingen Road, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Chicago police initially said that Moorman was sitting in the car when someone approached on foot and fired shots.
The surviving witness identified Thomas in a photo array, and fugitive trackers from the Great Lakes Task Force arrested him Wednesday in Chicago Heights on a murder warrant, authorities said. Once in custody, Thomas made statements placing himself at the scene, saying he’d gone with the accomplice to help the man “with an argument over a gun,” Kye said. But Thomas told authorities that he was armed with a “prop gun.”
Thomas’ court-appointed attorney noted that prosecutors didn’t indicate that Thomas had fired the fatal shot in asking for a reasonable bond, but Judge Stephanie K. Miller responded that state law allows for accomplices to be charged with murder if a homicide was committed during the commission of a crime.
Thomas is on parole for a 2017 aggravated unlawful use of a weapon charge and was set to be discharged from parole in September, according to state records. Following this most recent arrest, state prison officials lodged a parole violation against Thomas, who faces a life sentence if convicted.
News of Thomas’ bail denial brought some solace to Moorman’s close-knit family, who didn’t attend Saturday’s hearing. A graduate of Perspectives Leadership Academy in the Gresham neighborhood, Moorman was the youngest of five siblings and hoped to work as a mechanic one day, according to his father, Parrish.
“(The arrest) hasn’t given us full closure — it has given us some relief,” Parrish Moorman, 55, said by telephone Saturday evening.
Parrish Moorman described his youngest son as a friendly soul with a ready smile who would offer the shirt off his back or the food from his plate to anyone he saw who needed it. “He loved people. He was the type of kid that if you didn’t have a friend, he would be your friend. He always said everybody needs a friend,” Moorman said.
He added: “Right now everybody is just relieved that someone was caught. … If they let (Thomas) out, I would have felt like the system failed. I’m just glad that the judge held him without bail, which means he’s going to be there.”
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