Judge is fatally shot outside his Chicago home; he had been beaten by a motorist in 2015
Updated: A longtime criminal court judge in Chicago was shot and killed on Monday outside his home on the city’s South Side.
Judge Raymond Myles of Cook County, 66, was shot multiple times shortly before 5 a.m., report ABC 7, the Chicago Tribune and DNAinfo. A 52-year-old woman who was with Myles was shot in the leg and is hospitalized in serious condition.
A neighbor told the Tribune he believed Myles and his companion were on their way to a health club for their daily workout. The judge had installed cameras at his home, and they could have recorded the gunman, the neighbor said.
Police said the shooting may have stemmed from an attempted robbery, the Chicago Tribune reported.
The Chicago Police Department’s chief of detectives, Melissa Staples, said preliminary information indicates that Myles’ companion was shot first. Myles was still inside the home, and he went outside when he heard the gunshot. He “exchanged words with the offender before he was fatally shot multiple times,” Staples said at a news conference on Monday.
Stapes said detectives don’t know whether Myles’ work had anything to do with the shooting. The FBI has offered a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Myles was previously attacked in 2015 after a traffic accident in Chicago, according to this Chicago Tribune story. The other driver began punching Myles after the judge took out a cellphone and began recording the damage. Myles’ nose was broken, and he had to have reconstructive surgery to his face.
A suspect in the beating was arrested 10 months later and he was released pending trial, according to the Tribune’s March story.
Myles had been involved in several high-profile cases in his courtroom at 26th and California in Chicago. Among the suspects who appeared before him were two people accused in the 1993 Brown’s Chicken murders that took the lives of seven people, and a man charged in the slayings of three relatives of singer Jennifer Hudson.
Updated at 3:40 p.m. to include information from the news conference.
