A Maywood man helped kill a rival gang member in a retaliation hit last summer after posting $200 to get out of jail on felony gun charges, according to prosecutors and court records. He is the 36th person to be charged with killing or shooting someone in Chicago last year while on felony bail, according to CWBChicago research. A total of 41 victims are involved in the allegations.
Police arrested Shevell Wilson on March 23 after he was identified as one of three shooters who killed 25-year-old Anji Webster in the 3400 block of West Ohio on July 18, 2020, according to CPD and prosecutors.
Wilson and two accomplices who have not yet been charged are all Conservative Vice Lord street gang members who targeted Webster, a Traveling Vice Lord, to avenge the death of another CVL, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
Surveillance video shows a red Pontiac Grand Prix pulling into a nearby alley while Webster stood on the corner of Ohio and St. Louis after leaving a dice game, Murphy said. Three men emerged from the car, walked up to Webster, and fired 15 rounds, killing him, according to Murphy. The men then sped away in the Grand Prix.
Less than 12 hours before the murder, Wilson posted a video of himself at a party in which his hair was in dreads to his mid-back, and he was wearing a large white belt; blue, black, and white Nike Air Jordan 1 Retro High OG Royal Toe shoes; and dark jeans with whitewashing from the thighs that hung low enough to reveal blue underwear, according to Murphy.
Those are the exact clothes — right down to the underwear color — worn by one of the murderers who had dreads to his mid-back, Murphy told Judge Mary Marubio.
Wilson and the two accomplices had a series of conversations via text and social media before and after the killing in which they referred to the murder, discussed avenging a certain gang member’s death, laid out plans for exchanging firearms, and hatched plans to shoot more rivals, Murphy continued.
Phone records put Wilson within a mile of the murder scene before and after the killing, Murphy said, but Wilson’s phone did not ping within about an hour of the murder because it was apparently turned off.
Wilson has juvenile convictions for illegal gun possession and robbery, according to Murphy.
At the time of the murder, Wilson was on bail after posting $200 to get out of jail in a felony unlawful use of a weapon case. Those charges stemmed from a June 2019 traffic stop in which police said they found a loaded handgun with an extended ammunition magazine under the driver’s seat of a car Wilson was driving.
CPD records show Wilson was arrested three times for new cases while on bond for the gun case, including once just four days after the murder.
After hearing about the murder allegations, Judge Marubio ordered Wilson held without bail because “the nature of this offense indicates to me that additional murders were being planned.”
Wilson’s private defense attorney, David Gaeger, said the state’s case is “extremely circumstantial.” He also pointed out that Wilson has no adult criminal convictions.
Another gun allegation
In October 2020, between the time of Webster’s murder and the filing of charges against Wilson last week, prosecutors dropped the gun case that was pending against Wilson at the time of the killing. But, on March 4, he was arrested and charged with having a gun illegally in suburban Cicero, according to court records.
The Illinois State Police Crime Lab has linked that weapon to a drive-by shooting that left a 16-year-old boy with multiple gunshot wounds in East Chicago, Indiana, on August 9, 2020, according to a source. Wilson is not charged wtih participating in that crime.
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