A 60-year-old man allegedly shot and killed a man because the victim didn’t pay for the marijuana he gave him outside a Back of the Yards gas station.
Terry Johnson offered to sell marijuana to Nathaniel Walker when he noticed Walker walking out of the Citgo station with blunts around 9 p.m. Friday, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
Walker took the marijuana but did not pay Johnson and started driving away with a friend, Murphy said Monday at Johnson’s bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
Johnson, who was on foot, grabbed 31-year-old Walker’s car and shot Walker through an open window, striking him behind the ear, in the 5100 block of South Halsted Street, Murphy said.
Walker — still at the wheel — then drove across Halsted Street, crashing into a church parking lot. The Englewood man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Johnson, also from Englewood, fled in his car after the shooting. But he returned to the gas station Saturday, where he was arrested by Chicago police officers, Murphy said.
Security camera footage at the Citgo station captured the fatal shooting and officers found a bullet in Johnson’s car, Murphy said.
Johnson served as a mechanic in the U.S. Navy from 1976 to 1982 and had been recently working for NAPA Auto Parts in Naperville, Assistant Public Defender Theodore Thomas told Judge Arthur Willis.
He also suffers from seizures and has already been taken to the hospital because of a seizure since his arrest, Thomas added.
Johnson’s prior criminal record includes seven failures to report, Murphy said.
Willis ordered Johnson held without bail for first-degree murder.
But because Murphy noted that Johnson’s arrest report did not clarify where he grabbed Walker’s car, Willis said that if it turns out Johnson was in front of the car and could have been potentially run over — providing an argument of self-defense — Johnson’s no-bail order would be reconsidered.
