A Chicago man has been sentenced to 16 years for carjacking a woman at gunpoint in Old Town nearly four years ago, then running away to Nebraska about a month after being released on electronic monitoring.
Camron King, 21, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular hijacking with a weapon and escaping from electronic monitoring before Judge Lorraine Murphy. She sentenced him to 14 years on the carjacking count plus two consecutive years for escape.
King and his alleged accomplice, Isaiah Jackson, 22, were accused of confronting a woman as she loaded groceries into her car at Jewel Osco, 424 West Division, on July 23, 2019. Police said King pulled out a handgun and demanded her keys. She complied, and the two men got into her Audi. But the pair ran away when a security guard intervened.
Chicago police released surveillance images of two suspects shortly after the carjacking. King quickly turned himself in to Matteson police, and CPD officers arrested Jackson in Avondale.
About two months later, King posted a $3,000 bail deposit and went home on electronic monitoring.
“He lasted about a month,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said during a court hearing for King last year. Upon receiving an alert that King’s ankle monitor was being tampered with in October 2019, investigators tracked the unit’s GPS to the 6000 block of South Worcester.
“They were hoping to find the defendant there,” said Murphy. “They were half correct. They found the GPS bracelet on the ground … [it] appeared to have been sawed off with a metal cutting tool.”
Within weeks of escaping, King was arrested in Nebraska for felony assault by strangulation and misdemeanor domestic battery. Nebraska authorities released him to await trial, and he picked up another misdemeanor assault case, Murphy said.
Nebraska authorities turned King over to Cook County officials after he completed his sentences in their state. King also outfitted his face with new tattoos in the Cornhusker State.
King’s 16-year sentence will be reduced by 50% for good behavior. The judge also gave him 998 days of credit toward his prison time. The Illinois Department of Corrections estimates that he will be paroled on April 21, 2028.
His plea deal allowed him to avoid an even longer prison sentence. Prosecutors originally charged him with aggravated vehicular hijacking with a firearm, which carries an additional 15-year prison stint on top of any other sentence received. But that sentencing enhancement does not apply to aggravated vehicular hijacking with a weapon, which is what he pleaded to.
King’s co-defendant, Jackson, continues to fight the hijacking allegations. He is due back in court on April 11.