A second man has been charged in connection with a 2021 road slaying.
Joseph O. Smith, 32, of Glenwood, Ill. was charged Monday with murder and attempted murder. He is in custody.
Thomas Hill, 33, of Chicago, shot five times, died in a July 17, 2021 road shooting on Indianapolis Boulevard near the I-80/94 interchange. A woman with him was wounded.
His death was ruled a homicide.
Smith’s co-defendant Damonte “MG Montae” Jones, 24, of Chicago, was charged in November.
The woman said they had just left a birthday party at Up Your Alley in Schererville around midnight and were headed north on Indianapolis Boulevard when someone opened fire at the van.
Police arrived at 12:15 a.m. at the GoLo gas station, 7306 Indianapolis Blvd. in Hammond. Hill was found “unresponsive,” shot in the head in the driver’s seat of a 2004 GMC van. The vehicle had crashed and was in the lot.
Investigators estimated at least 30 shots were fired.
Authorities said the slaying grew out of a deadly rivalry between the Gangster Disciples and Black Disciples, documents show. Police later learned the bowling alley birthday party Hill attended was for a known Black Disciples member.
Investigators got a break in the case over a year later in another shooting.
After a Sept. 25, 2022, shooting at Serenity Lounge, 6217 Kennedy Ave., in Hammond killed one man and wounded three others at a birthday party, investigators linked some involved to Hill’s slaying, records show.
Officers found Brian Leonard, 29, of Chicago, and three others nearby shot “multiple” times, charges state. Leonard was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m. at the hospital, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office. His death was ruled a homicide.
Leonard was a rival gang member to the Gangster Disciples, records allege.
Daquan Pierce, Marcus Mathis, Cordero Miller, Smith and Brian Emory are charged in connection with that slaying, court records show.
One of Smith’s cell phones was recovered after the Serenity Lounge shooting. When it was extracted, it had a group chat that appeared to show plotting on the night of Hill’s death. Smith sent a screenshot of the flyer for the Up Your Alley birthday party to the group chat. Jones was believed to be in the Jeep, closest to Hill’s van.
North Chicago Police recovered an AK-47 in November 2021 linked to Hill’s killing.
