A convicted felon who hoped to become a motivational speaker after penning an autobiography from prison is accused of shooting a college student to death in West Englewood.
James Reed allegedly opened fire as he argued with others over stolen property, killing 18-year-old Keishanay Bolden, a student at Western Illinois University.
18 murders in 24 hours: Inside the most violent day in 60 years in Chicago
“We’ve never seen anything like it, at all,” said Max Kapustin, the senior research director at the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
Read the story here.
Last Month, the Chicago Sun-Times profiled Bolden as one of the 18 people killed in a rash of gun violence on May 31 — the most violent day in the city in 60 years.
Bolden had dreams of becoming a correctional officer. Her family could not be reached for comment.
Reed, 34, and a group of others had been arguing around 4:30 p.m. that day in the 6300 block of South Carpenter Street when Bolden, a 29-year-old woman, and two others inside a nearby home were told there was going to be a fight outside, prosecutors said.
The 29-year-old woman carried a baseball bat with her, which she later handed to another individual, and got into an argument with another woman who was standing with Reed by a parked car, prosecutors said.
During the argument, Reed pulled out a handgun from his waistband and fired a single shot, which struck Bolden in the chest, prosecutors said.
The bullet exited Bolden’s back and struck the 29-year-old woman who had been standing behind her.
Bolden was taken to St. Bernard Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. The bullet remains lodged in the older victim’s hip, prosecutors said.
After the shooting, Reed and the woman he was with drove away before police arrived, prosecutors said.
Witnesses gave detectives Reed’s name and he was taken into custody last week. The woman who was with Reed is being sought by authorities.
Reed has a lengthy criminal record, which includes a 2010 conviction for being an armed habitual criminal for which he was sentenced to seven years in prison, prosecutors said. He also has convictions for unlawful use of a weapon and misdemeanor assault.
While in prison on his last conviction, Reed penned a manuscript that later became his 2016 self-published autobiography, “Escaping Death’s Grip: An Autobiography from the Streets of Chiraq.”
Reed’s parents and three siblings died in a house fire in 1990, according to his biography included in the book.
The Sun-Times reported that Reed’s family had moved into the basement of a relative’s building because they had nowhere else to go. They were using their stove for heat, with all four burners and the oven turned on, which melted a gas regulator, causing flames to shoot into the kitchen.
Reed said he was taken in by members of the Black P-Stones street gang when he was 8. Reed “embraced criminality as he floated from home to home, and in and out of juvenile detention” and “ran with a loyal crew, made lots of money and traveled the country.”
Writing the book made Reed realize that during those days “he did not value his life or the lives of others” — a time when he wanted to die and be with the family he never really knew, the autobiography states.
University of Chicago professor Chad Broughton edited the book after meeting Reed while interviewing another inmate at the Lawrence Correctional Center in 2015.
In an afterward, Broughton wrote Reed’s story offered “a rare window into street life.”
In court Friday, an assistant public defender said Reed had toured as a motivational speaker for the book in the past and lived in the city with his wife and two children.
Reed was denied bail for Bolden’s murder.
He is expected back in court on July 29.
