A man has been charged with murder in the March shooting death of a 65-year-old woman and the stabbing of her granddaughter.
Kyron J. Thomas, 22, is the second man to be charged in the Bronzeville attack after he turned himself in to Chicago police Saturday morning. Thomas was denied bail at his initial court hearing Sunday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Just before 11 a.m. March 23, Thomas and Benjamin Williams, 31, walked up to the door of a home in the 100 block of East 37th Place, where Williams’ ex-girlfriend was living with her grandmother, 65-year-old Peggy Goodman, Cook County prosecutors said.
The younger woman locked herself in an upstairs bedroom and called 911 after Goodman opened the door for the two men, prosecutors said. Thomas and Williams followed the 18-year-old upstairs and started pounding on the bedroom door.
When they couldn’t get into the bedroom, Williams and Thomas went back downstairs and shot Goodman in the head at point-blank range, prosecutors said.
The two went back upstairs, where Williams kicked in the 18-year-old’s door, pointed the gun at her face and pulled the trigger twice. The gun was out of bullets and didn’t fire, so Thomas and Williams used a razor blade and a knife to stab her more than 20 times, prosecutors said.
Goodman was pronounced dead at the scene and her granddaughter was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, where she identified Williams to police, according to authorities.
Officers took Williams into custody about an hour later at his South Side home, according to police records.
Thomas wasn’t immediately arrested, but he left his phone at the home, and Williams repeatedly tried to call him after the attack, prosecutors said.
After an arrest warrant was issued, Thomas turned himself in this week at the 2nd District station, police records show.
Thomas and Williams both face counts of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder, according to court records. Williams, who was held with no bail in March, was also charged with home invasion and domestic battery.
Thomas will remain jailed until he’s due back in court on Tuesday.
