Two teenagers were taken into custody in Illinois on July 12 after a shooting spree in the East St. Louis area left five members of the same family dead and two others seriously wounded. State police said the suspects, ages 15 and 16, were arrested at Frank Holten State Park after a PIT maneuver on a vehicle one of them was driving.
Illinois State Police Director Brendan Kelly said the violence unfolded at three locations within a few miles of one another and that at least seven members of the targeted family were shot. The dead were identified as Cherie L. May, Devin D. May, Patricia A. May, Quentin L. Thompson and Shania W. Thompson.
The killings were spread across the area in a way that made the attack harder to contain and easier to understand as one coordinated act rather than three separate incidents. One victim was killed near North 39th Street and Summit Avenue, three were killed at the Samuel Gompers Homes, and another died at Jones Park. The two wounded victims were also shot at Jones Park and were treated at a hospital in St. Louis.
Kelly said the shootings targeted members of the same family, and at least one of the suspects is related to the victims. State police did not say how the second suspect is connected or what led to the attack, and they have not identified the charges they will seek. They said they were working with the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office as the case moved forward.
That leaves the most important piece of the case still unresolved: why a family was hit across three sites in the same day, with five people killed and two more fighting to survive. East St. Louis, in St. Clair County across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis, is a city of nearly 18,000 people, and investigators said the matter remains open.
