A pair of gunmen have been found guilty in the slaying of a retired Chicago fire lieutenant during a carjacking attempt in the Morgan Park neighborhood.
Separate juries on Wednesday found Devin Barron and Jaylen Saulsberry guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting of retired Lt. Dwain Williams, who Cook County prosecutors said was confronted at gunpoint by a carjacking crew in December 2020 as he left a gourmet popcorn shop.
The jury in Barron’s trial returned its verdict about five hours after deliberations began and immediately after the jury in Saulsberry’s trial retired to begin its own discussions.
It took less than two hours for the second panel to reach its decision.
Members of Williams’ family wore matching red outfits for the final day of the trial.
“He was a firefighter, so everything was red,” his daughters said as they recalled their father’s favorite color. “We started the trial wearing red, and we ended in red.”
When their trials began last week, there were three defendants and three separate juries.
But in a surprise on Tuesday, the third co-defendant, Dwain Johnson, took the stand to testify against Barron and Saulsberry after Johnson accepted a plea offer from the state’s attorney’s office midtrial that saw his murder charge reduced.
Johnson, 20, pleaded guilty to a count of aggravated battery with a firearm, according to court records. Prosecutors said they would seek the maximum 30-year sentence against him.
A fourth defendant, a boy who was 15 at the time of Williams’ death, had his case adjudicated in juvenile court and also testified against Barron and Saulsberry. Prosecutors said he was back in school and had stayed out of trouble.
All four were part of a carjacking crew that targeted Williams’ Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk SUV after they spotted it while driving.
With the 15-year-old behind the wheel of a stolen Ford Fusion sedan, the crew trailed Williams until he parked outside Let’s Get Poppin’ at 11758 S. Western Ave. and then waited for Williams to return.
Barron and Saulsberry got out of the stolen Ford with guns drawn and confronted Williams as he carried a package of popcorn to his Jeep.
Williams, a concealed-carry holder, drew his own gun and exchanged fire with the crew before they fled. Williams was shot in his abdomen and died a short time later.
Investigators tracked the group using cellphone data and surveillance footage.
DNA evidence implicating Saulsberry was recovered from a shoe that one of the gunmen left behind as he fled, and a fingerprint on a granola bar found in the back seat of the Ford when it was recovered in Tinley Park matched Barron’s, prosecutors said.
Attorneys for both defendants spent much of their closing arguments Wednesday assailing the integrity and reliability of testimony by the teenager and Johnson.
“This was not some wide-eyed kid,” Barron’s attorney, David Gaeger, said to jurors about the 15-year-old, but a “sophisticated” criminal. During a police interrogation, Gaeger said the teen’s mother pressured her son into telling the detectives information they wanted to hear to “save himself.”
Saulsberry’s attorney, David Sotomayor, called the teenager a “druggie” who testified he took the drug ecstasy regularly.
Gaeger said Johnson’s testimony lacked a shred of credibility, arguing prosecutors “went to the person they had the strongest case against and offered him a deal” to testify against the others.
“His motive was to get the deal and get out of here as quick as he can,” Sotomayor agreed.
Prosecutors countered that both the teenager and Johnson had “done the right thing” in the end, and that it took guts for them to take the stand.
“It doesn’t make them snitches; it makes them men,” an assistant state’s attorney said.
Williams’ family said they were consulted by the state’s attorney’s office on the decision to offer a plea deal midtrial to Johnson, and they said they believed it helped secure the additional two guilty verdicts and bring them justice.
“We wanted the shooters,” daughter Tarmarcea Humphrey said.
She said the family took no consolation in the fact that all three young men would spend decades in prison, saying they were the type of youth that their father had gone out of his way to coach and mentor.
They said they also hoped Williams would be remembered for his life of service, particularly for his work as a city firefighter who would “rush into a burning building to save anyone.”
“We don’t want the last 30 minutes of his life to define him,” his daughter Kenya Hester said. “He was about more than that.”
