A Shorewood man has been charged with murder in connection with a January shooting rampage in Joliet, which officials called a “reign of terror” over Illinois’ third-largest city.
Jon W. Hansen, 24, was arrested Friday, according to a statement from the Will County Sheriff’s Office. He was charged with three counts of murder, attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm.
During the Jan. 21 shooting spree, Romeo Nance, 23, is suspected of killing eight people, including his mother, aunt, uncle, brother and three sisters who were found in two homes on either side of West Acres Road. Toyosi Bakare, 28, died in unincorporated Joliet Township. Nance died the next day from a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a standoff with U.S. marshals in Texas.
Shortly after, the sheriff’s office said they determined Hansen was with Nance prior to the random shootings of Bakare and another man, who was injured in the 200 block of Davis Street.
In a Jan. 27 interview, Hansen told detectives he was with Nance when Bakare was shot and killed, the sheriff’s office said. Hansen also admitted to throwing a gun that Nance had given him after the shooting in the DuPage River near his residence but refused to give police further information.
A Plainfield Fire Department diver located the pistol Hansen allegedly threw into the river on Feb. 5 by dragging a magnet on the bottom of the riverbed near Westshore Drive and Picnic Street in Shorewood, the sheriff’s office said.
Hansen was arrested Friday “without incident” after detectives obtained a no-bond warrant, the sheriff’s office said.
Hansen is the second person to be charged in the mass shooting. Nance’s girlfriend, 21, was charged with obstructing the investigation into Nance after she told officials she didn’t have his phone number in January.
