Joliet mass murder suspect Romeo Nance is believed to have killed all eight of his victims — two of them teenage girls — on Sunday, the day before police discovered seven of them at a grisly crime scene and Nance wound up killing himself while on the run.
Those were among the few details that police shared Tuesday on the rampage in the Joliet area that left two girls, three women and three men dead, and another man wounded — before the suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Texas.
Police did not discuss a possible motive for the massacre.
“We can’t get inside his head. We just don’t have any clue as to why he did what he did.” Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans said during a news briefing Tuesday.
“This incident has had a tremendous impact on the city of Joliet,” Evans said. “It’s had a tremendous impact on my agency, both mentally and physically.”
Investigators said they believed Nance, 23, fatally shot seven individuals — a “majority” of them his relatives — in two homes in the 2200 block of West Acres Road before committing two “random” shootings in the area and fleeing Will County, Evans said.
Officers discovered the bodies in the homes Monday, but investigators now believe they were shot Sunday afternoon, Evans said.
Five people were found in one of the homes: two girls ages 14 and 16, as well two women and a man. The adults were identified by the Will County coroner’s office as Alexandria Nance, 20; Christine Esters, 38; and Joshua Nance, 31.
Across the street, 47-year-old Tamaeka Nance and 35-year-old William Esters II were found in the other home, police and the coroner’s office said.
The names of the two teenage girls were not released.
An official at Joliet West High School wouldn’t confirm whether the teens were students there but said crisis management support would be available Wednesday due to the “close proximity” of the homicides to the school.
On Monday, Evans told reporters, “I’ve been a policeman for 29 years; this is probably the worst crime scene I’ve ever been associated with.”
Nance was related to a “majority,” if not all, of the residents of both houses, but investigators are still working to establish their exact relationships, Evans said Tuesday.
After the shootings in the two homes, Nance shot two more men, one of them fatally, before fleeing the area Sunday, Evans said.
Deputies were called about 4:30 p.m. Sunday to the Pheasant Run Apartments in unincorporated Joliet Township and found Toyosi Bakare, 28, with a gunshot wound to his head, said Dan Jungles, deputy chief of the Will County sheriff’s office.
Bakare was taken to St. Joseph hospital in Joliet, where he died, according to the Will County coroner’s office.
Jungles said robbery didn’t appear to be a motive in that shooting. Bakare had gone out to buy some cigarettes at a gas station, he said.
The other shooting happened about 10 minutes earlier in Joliet, Jungles said. A 42-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 200 block of Davis Street. His injuries were not considered to be life-threatening.
Evans said there didn’t appear to be a connection between the shootings in the two homes and the later shootings Sunday.
“In many cases like this, we may never know the truth or the motives behind the senseless killings,” Jungles said.
Authorities identified a red Toyota Camry that was known to be used by Nance as being connected to the shootings of the two men, Jungles said. When deputies couldn’t find the car, they set up surveillance Sunday night in the 2200 block of West Acres, where the car’s registered owner lived.
After releasing the car’s description to the public, deputies visited the registered owner’s home but didn’t get a response. They then visited a home across the street that investigators knew Nance often occupied and noticed blood on the front door and “fresh” gunshot markings.
Deputies made their way inside the home and found two bodies. A team of law enforcement officials then entered the other home and found five more bodies, Jungles said.
Several agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force, assisted in the search for Nance.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, U.S. marshals informed Will County deputies that Nance was believed to be traveling in Texas, Jungles said.
Task force officers tracked him to a gas station in Natalia, a Texas town about 30 miles southwest of San Antonio, Jungles said. Nance fatally shot himself outside the gas station about 8:30 p.m. as he was being chased by task force officers after fleeing from his car.
Evans said investigators believe Nance had stopped at a mall and stolen Texas license plates for his vehicle to throw law enforcement off his trail, but it wasn’t clear why he fled to that state.
“At this point we don’t believe he had any relatives or any connection to the state of Texas,” Evans said.
Jungles said Nance had an “extensive criminal history.”
Nance had been out on bond for a shooting last year, but he appeared to be following court orders in the months leading to the latest shootings, according to court records.
In early January of last year, Nance allegedly fired at a car carrying a woman. No one was hit, but he was charged in an arrest warrant with aggravated battery and recklessly firing a weapon, records show.
As he was being taken into custody Jan. 27, 2023, Nance wrestled free from officers and tried to run, leading authorities to also charge him with obstruction, the records show.
Later the next month, Nance was charged with criminal damage to government property after he allegedly broke glass in a cell door, according to the records.
A judge set his bond at $100,000 for all the charges against him. Nance’s attorney asked the court to lower his bond, but a judge denied the motion.
Also that February, Nance was charged with a misdemeanor count of battery while still in jail. Details on that case were not immediately available.
Nance was released in March after a sister posted the required 10% of his bond. Court records show he had appeared in person at each of the subsequent hearings in his case, including the most recent one at the end of November.
“Mr. Nance’s reign of terror in our communities and Will County is now over,” Jungles said. “It’s time for our communities to come together and heal.”
