A man who has been convicted of two separate murders and publicly admitted to a third killing was charged Wednesday with murdering another man over the weekend. Bernard Barry, 75, was arrested after a SWAT standoff Sunday evening.
In 1970, Barry — then known as Anthony Singletary — received an eight-year sentence for murder, according to prosecutors. In that case, a Chicago police officer shot his partner as the partner fought Barry for control of a gun inside a tavern, the Tribune reported. Not long after he got out, he reportedly killed two more people.
On July 3, 1975, Barry shot an acquaintance on a restaurant parking lot in “a scuffle over money.” The next day, he shot and killed a motorcyclist who was traveling through Wicker Park with a female passenger. Barry claimed the biker called him a racial slur. He told those stories to a journalist in 1998, shortly after being released early from a 90-year sentence he received for the Wicker Park case.
More recently, Barry was convicted of aggravated discharge of a firearm in 2005 and received a 15-year sentence. His parole in that case ended last August. Illinois State Police records show Barry has not been complying with murderer registration laws.
Now, nine months after his last sentence ended, Barry is accused of killing 42-year-old Tyran Evans outside a West Town assisted living center on Sunday afternoon.
Prosecutors said Evans, who was himself on bail while awaiting trial for second-degree murder, rode his bike up to the driver’s side of a car Barry was sitting in. Barry and his passenger would both later tell police that Evans told them to get out of the car and took a swing at Barry, prosecutors said. As Evans swung, Barry fired a gun that he already had out, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
The bullet passed through Evans’ arm, lodged in his chest, and killed him, according to Murphy.
As Evans was dying on a nearby sidewalk, Barry got out of the car, threw Evans’ bicycle out of the way, and sped off after his passenger bailed from the vehicle, Murphy said. Barry ditched the gun on his way home, but police later found four spent shell casings inside his car, according to Murphy.
An employee of the assisted living center came outside after hearing gunfire and allegedly saw Barry driving away. The witness recognized him because he once lived at the facility, Murphy said. Surveillance cameras allegedly captured the entire incident. Murphy said Barry gave police conflicting accounts of what happened and what he did with the gun.
Barry’s private defense attorney said the case “may very well be a self-defense situation.”
Prosecutors charged Barry with first-degree murder Wednesday, but Murphy said additional counts, including gun-related charges, will be forthcoming.
Judge Arthur Willis noted that Barry never called police to report shooting Evans or report that anyone had tried to carjack him on Sunday. Willis ordered Barry held without bail.
