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| Alexis Stubbs | Facebook |
An Uptown man has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for beating and stabbing his girlfriend’s 12-year-old daughter to death with a hammer and a knife in June 2017.
John Singleton, 32, on Tuesday pleaded guilty to one count of murder for brutally killing Alexis Stubbs during a domestic argument with the girl’s mother in the 4600 block of North Beacon.
Prosecutors dropped nine additional murder counts; eight Class X felony kidnaping counts, and two felony counts of unlawful restraint in their plea deal with Singleton.
On June 11th of last year, Singleton had been out on parole for two months after serving half of a three-year sentence for an aggravated domestic battery case that involved Alexis’ mother.
He was at Stubbs’ apartment when Alexis’ mother, Misty, told him to leave around 10 p.m., then called the police. Misty then stepped outside with Alexis to await arriving police officers.
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| John Singleton | Chicago Police Dept |
At some point before police arrived, Singleton took Alexis back inside the apartment building and killed her.
Witnesses reported hearing the girl scream, “Please, daddy, don’t” as Singleton began attacking the girl in a second-floor hallway.
The 19th (Town Hall) Police District was in a backlog at the time of Stubb’s 911 call, meaning that no officers were available to immediately respond to her request for help. Two cops arrived about nine minutes after her first call for help as Singleton fled out the apartment complex’s back door.
CWBChicago reported that six of the 19th District’s fifteen beat patrol cars sat at the station on the night of Alexis’ murder because there were not enough officers on duty to operate them.
Alexis’ mom, Misty Stubbs, called 911 at 9:46 p.m. on June 11th to ask for police assistance in getting Singleton out of her apartment, according to dispatch records provided by Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
As she stepped outside and waited for officers to arrive, OEMC classified her call as a domestic disturbance, one of the department’s highest priority classifications.
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| Alexis was killed on the second floor of this apartment complex in the 4600 block of North Beacon. | Google |
But the call was not dispatched to officers because the 19th District was in Radio Assignment Pending (RAP) status, which means that there were not enough police units to handle incoming calls for service. The district had been in a RAP since 3:31 that afternoon, according to records secured by CWBChicago.
Three minutes after her first call for help, Misty called 911 again, records show. Singleton had armed himself with a knife, she said.
Noting that the situation was escalating, a dispatcher read the call out on the air in case there were resources available. But no one took the call, and it sat unassigned for nearly two more minutes.
Finally, at 9:52 p.m. a two-cop unit was able to respond. Within three minutes, one of the two officers broke onto the radio, breathless, calling for EMS and giving out a description of Singleton, who had just fled through the back door with a hammer.
“The backlogs are terrible,” one Chicago dispatcher told us shortly after Alexis’ death. “[Shift] change time is absolutely horrible. I feel powerless with no resources.”
Hours after Alexis was killed, police found the 6-foot-3-inch, 200-pound Singleton hiding in a portable toilet about two blocks from the murder scene. A blood-soaked t-shirt was at his side.
As he hid in the toilet, Singleton sent a series of text messages to Misty Stubbs.
“U f*cking made me kill my only child all because u ain’t wanna come n tha house u sh*t startin b*tch,” one of the messages said.
Back in 2014, Singleton put both of his hands around Misty Stubb’s neck, choked her, and shoved her against closet doors and shelves, prosecutors said. He took away her cell phone so she couldn’t call the police.
“I’m gonna kill you,” he yelled. “I’m gonna go to jail for you.”
Misty Stubbs eventually contacted police. Singleton was arrested and later pleaded guilty to aggravated domestic battery case. When he was paroled, Singleton tried to re-establish the relationship with Misty Stubbs.
He was allowed to stay in her home for a week at a time, prosecutors would later say. A dispute over those living arrangements—Singleton wanted to move in for good—is what led to the argument that ended with the senseless death of Alexis Stubbs.
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