Eric Davis | Homicide Watch Chicago

UPDATE: No bond for two men charged with murder in South Shore shooting deaths of deacon, musician

Brian Slodysko — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 19:56:54 -0500

Mark Hall / Photo from Chicago Police

BY BRIAN SLODYSKO
Chicago Sun-Times

Tattooed across the throat of Mark A. Hall, one of two men accused of killing a deacon and a blues musician during botched robberies last December, is the phrase: “God 4 Gives I Don’t.”

On Sunday, it was Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois’ turn to be unforgiving. With a dismissive nod, Bourgeois ordered Hall held without bail as he awaits trial. His co-defendant, Devin Aldridge, was ordered held without bond on Saturday.

Hall and Aldridge, both 23, were charged with two counts each of first-degree murder for the early morning killings of deacon Willie Cooper and musician Eric “Guitar” Davis on Dec. 19, 2013, in the South Shore neighborhood, authorities said.

Cooper and Davis were shot to death within 40 minutes just blocks from each other, Assistant State’s Attorney Luz Toledo said in court.

In both cases, the men were in their vehicles waiting to pick up a friend, prosecutors said. Each tried to speed away to avoid getting robbed by Aldridge and Hall, prosecutors alleged. Instead, they both died in a hail of 9 mm bullets that were traced to the same handgun, according to prosecutors.

Cooper, 74, was shot at 4:44 a.m. in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue. Davis, 41, was sitting in his vehicle in the 6700 block of South East End about 5:20 a.m. when he was shot, police said.

Davis, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston in Riverdale, and Cooper, of the 6800 block of South Crandon, were dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Prosecutors credited the arrest of Aldridge and Hall to the work of family, police and Cook County Crime Stoppers. The groups distributed fliers with video surveillance images of the suspects in the neighborhood. Officers in the district recognized Aldridge and Hall from the fliers.

Devin Aldridge / Photo from Chicago Police

Prosecutors said a witness came forward in June and identified Aldridge as one of the people running away from the car after Cooper was fatally shot. Aldridge’s phone number also “pinged” a cell tower near the area of that homicide, prosecutors said. Surveillance footage shows Hall shooting Cooper, prosecutors said.

“Willie Cooper was a deacon of his church and a great person who would help anyone,” Crime Stoppers Chairman George McDade said in a statement in June. “Eric Davis is from a family of jazz musicians and had a promising career.”

McDade called both men “pillars in their community.”

Two men charged in murders of deacon, musician

Michael Lansu — Fri, 08 Aug 2014 16:15:13 -0500

Mark Hall / Photo from Chicago Police

Two men have been charged with murder for separate shootings blocks apart that killed a deacon and a musician December 2013 on the South Side.

Mark Hall and Devin Aldridge, both 23, were each charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the Dec. 19, 2013, shootings that killed Deacon Willie Cooper and musician Eric “Guitar” Davis, authorities said.

Both Davis and Cooper were sitting in parked vehicles when they were shot about 30 minutes apart in the early morning hours, police said at the time.

Cooper, 74, was waiting to give a friend a ride to work when he was shot at 4:44 a.m. in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue. Davis, 41, was sitting in his vehicle in the 6700 block of South East End about 5:20 a.m. when he was shot, police said.

Both Davis, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston in Riverdale, and Cooper, of the 6800 block of South Crandon, were dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Family, police and Cook County Crime Stoppers passed out flyers in the neighborhood as recently as June asking for the public’s help to solve the shootings.

Devin Aldridge / Photo from Chicago Police

McDade called both men “pillars in their community.”

Hall, of the 7000 block of South East End Avenue, and Aldridge, of the 1600 block of East 68th Street, are expected to appear in bond court Saturday, police said.

-- Sun-Times Media Wire

Police: Neighbors know slaying suspects, but no one’s talking

Michael Lansu — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:04:30 -0500

Surveillance image / Photo from Chicago Police

BY FRANK MAIN
Chicago Sun-Times

One victim was a retired bus driver and the other a talented blues guitarist.

They were shot to death three blocks apart on the morning of Dec. 19, 2013, in what police believe were botched robberies.

Police said they have two suspects in the murders. Both are now behind bars for other crimes. But no one in the South Shore neighborhood, where the shootings happened, will come forward to identify them as the killers.

“We are very close to making arrests,” said Sgt. Daniel Gallagher. “This case is not unsolvable. We’re hoping someone from the community steps up.”

Gallagher said police have gathered surveillance video that shows two suspects walking toward the Chevrolet Malibu in which 74-year-old Willie Cooper was waiting to pick up a friend at about 5 a.m. in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue.

Cooper, a retired Chicago Transit Authority bus driver, was waiting to give his friend a ride to their jobs as Blue Cross/Blue Shield shuttle bus drivers.

Private security video showed two men approach Cooper’s car. After an exchange of words, a gunman shot Cooper through a window as he tried to drive away. Cooper crashed into a gate, dying of seven bullet wounds.

Chicago Public Schools security video showed the suspects fleeing through a school play lot.

About 40 minutes later, surveillance video from an apartment complex showed the suspects approach Eric “Guitar” Davis’ car in the 6700 block of East End Avenue. Davis, 41, had just left a friend’s house and was going home. Again, he and his assailants exchanged words. Then Davis put his car into gear and was shot through a window; he was hit three times.

Investigators tracked the killers’ escape route and obtained a security video of them in a gangway. The video clearly shows the faces of the suspects — a 23-year-old and a 22-year-old with extensive criminal records, police said.

On Saturday, Cooper’s fiancée, Mamie Washington, and Davis’ brother Robert Jones walked through the neighborhood with volunteers, police and CrimeStoppers officials. They distributed fliers with the suspects’ surveillance camera photos.

Many residents knew the names of the suspects and some said they were even victims of them. Residents told Washington and Jones the men were notorious for committing break-ins, robberies and other crimes. One woman said one of the suspects invaded her home and tied her up looking for drugs, but she never reported the crime to police.

But no residents would talk to police about their run-ins with the men.

A $1,000 reward from Crimestoppers for the arrest and conviction of the killers has not helped.

Surveillance image / Photo from Chicago Police

Jones said he heard several people witnessed his brother’s murder.

“Everybody in the neighborhood knows who did it,” he said. “Next time, it might be their family member.”

Washington said her fiancé was carrying only $20 when he was killed — and the robbers didn’t even get that.

“I tell people, ‘This is your chance to keep these guys from coming back and terrorizing your neighborhood,’ ” she said. “These are not animals. Animals kill for a reason. These are savages.”

Police release surveillance images in murders of Eric "Guitar" Davis, Willie Cooper

Michael Lansu — Sat, 07 Jun 2014 17:16:20 -0500

Surveillance image / Photo from Chicago Police

Police have released video surveillance of two men they are looking to question in connection with two shooting deaths blocks apart last December.

The murders happened about 30 minutes apart and three blocks apart in the early morning hours of Dec. 19, 2013, police said.

Both Eric "Guitar" Davis and Willie Cooper were sitting in parked vehicles when they were shot during attempted armed robberies, police said.

“Willie Cooper was a deacon of his church and a great person who would help anyone,” George McDade, chairman of the Cook County Crime Stoppers, said in a statement. “Eric Davis is from a family of jazz musicians and had a promising career.

“Both men were pillars in their community and involved in careers and helping others. Now they both share a violent death from gun violence as victims of possible robbery,” McDade said.

Cooper, 74, was waiting to give a friend a ride to work when two suspects shot him at 4:44 a.m. in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue, authorities said.

Davis, 41, was sitting in his vehicle in the 6700 block of South East End Avenue about 5:20 a.m. when two people shot him, police said.

Both Davis, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston Avenue in Riverdale; and Cooper, of the 6800 block of South Crandon Avenue, were dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Police said previously they believe the same offenders may be involved in both shootings.

Crime Stoppers will be distributing flyers Saturday in the area of the murders at 70th Street and South East End Avenue, McDade said.

Surveillance image / Photo from Chicago Police

“Crime Stoppers joins the victims’ families and Chicago Police this Saturday looking for information from the community that will lead to the identification and arrest of the offenders” he said in the statement.

Crime Stoppers is offering a cash reward up to $1,000 for information leading to an arrest in either case.

Anyone with information should call (800) 535-7867; callers can remain anonymous.

-- Sun-Times Media Wire

Chicago blues community hosts benefit for slain musician Eric “Guitar” Davis

Michael Lansu — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:24:39 -0600

BY MARK GUARINO
Chicago Sun-Times

The homicide crisis in Chicago impacted the blues music community in December when a gunman killed Eric “Guitar” Davis, an emerging musician many say was just hitting his stride.

Davis was 41. A roster of blues musicians, including Billy Branch, Sugar Blue, Matthew Skoller, Jimmy Burns, and many others, will pay tribute to Davis Sunday at Rosa’s Lounge in a benefit for his three young children. There is also an eBay auction featuring a singed guitar from Buddy Guy, harmonicas from James Cotton and Sugar Blue, and original prints from rock photographer Paul Natkin.

“[Davis] had greater motivation than anybody I know,” says Tony Mangiullo, Rosa’s owner. “He was playing for the enthusiasm of playing. People could feel it. Every song had a message and inner purpose.”

Davis was shot multiple times in his car Dec. 19 during an attempted robbery in the 6700 block of South East End Avenue in the South Shore neighborhood. Police still are looking for his killers; they say Davis’ murder is likely connected to the death of a retired CTA driver who was killed 30 minutes earlier on the same street while sitting in his car about three blocks south.

The guitarist was just beginning his musical career, having self-released two albums, and performing regularly at Rosa’s, Kingston Mines, B.L.U.E.S. on Halsted, and throughout Europe. Last fall, he signed a contract with Delmark Records, the famed blues music label. Steve Wagner, Delmark’s general manager, was set to co-produce the album with Davis. He said Davis piqued their interest through his live show, which is documented via chicagobluesnetwork.com, a website Wagner curates.

“He was a strong singer and had charisma. People enjoyed him and picked up on his energy,” Wagner says. “He had a funkier side to his show than other more mainstream blues artist. You may have a James Brown lick, going into a Buddy Miles song, into an original song, and he put it all together so it made sense.”

Davis grew up in Bronzeville to a musician father and started playing drums when he was 5, and was good enough to perform in public at age 10. Through the years, he shared the stage with Junior Wells, Buddy Guy, Tyrone Davis, among others, but said in interviews he lacked the confidence to play the guitar.

“I wanted to be on the streets. … I was running the streets with gangs, without any direction … even when I was gang bangin’, I’d go to the clubs to listen to the blues,” he told the Illinois Entertainer in March 2012.

After the premature death of a friend, he quit the gang life and took a job in the laundry room of Holy Cross Hospital in Chicago, when he started practicing guitar and showed up at blues clubs every night to study. His dream was to stand apart and become an original: “I don’t want to play ‘Sweet Home Chicago’ or ‘Down Home Blues’ or ‘Stormy Monday.’ I want to play other stuff and make it my own,” he said. “My rhythm and beats are influenced by hip-hop. My rhythm is on the upbeat, not the downbeat. It’s new school.”

To those who knew Davis, he was certainly an individual. Unlike most area blues musicians, he played gigs with a 7-member band, which included a 3-man horn section. He also performed mainly original compositions, and brandished a confidence that many veteran artists decades older lack.

“That’s why Eric Davis was different,” Mangiullo says. “The moment he was on stage, he had something to say. He wanted to be the focus of that moment. He wanted to tell people about his life in his music and lyrics, and he wanted to be honest about that. He was telling people, ‘this is where I’m coming from, my mother told me I was born to lose and I think she was right.’”

Then there was his wardrobe: A muscular frame fit into tank-tops or vests, showcasing his many tattoos, plus flip-flops and a bandana on his head. Leslie Bell, his life partner of 13 years and mother to his three children, says she met Davis while waiting for the bus at the corner of 63rd St. and Aberdeen. He pulled a U-turn and she took notice. They remained together ever since.

“He was very unique. People thought he was a thug. But he used to say ‘someday, somebody is going to see me for who I am, you just watch’,” she said.

Davis became a rising star on the club circuit and, when he traveled the Midwest, phoned ahead to see if he could bring his three children who are all musicians — Jemyria, an 11-year-old bassist, Isaiah, a 9-year-old drummer, and Ivory, a 13-year-old rapper. All three children will perform at the benefit Sunday.

Eric "Guitar" Davis / Photo from Chicago Sun-Times

Bell says because Davis made a commitment to his music and his family, his career took off in the way he dreamed. In talking to the Illinois Entertainer, he professed surprise that his music took him to Europe several times.

“I never thought I’d leave this country when I was on the streets. My destiny was to be dead, strung out on drugs, or in the penitentiary. But the blues was always in me, it was just about how to get it out and when to get it out,” he said.

To Bell, watching video of audiences in Italy knowing his songs well enough to sing them back to him, is evidence he knew what he was doing. “Eric’s music was going exactly where he wanted it to go — to people’s hearts,” she says.

She remembers Davis retreating to his car to write songs, and later walking them inside their home to talk with her about them.

“One song I asked him about had the lyric, ‘country roads, I’m coming home’ and I said, ‘Eric, you’re not from the country, you’re not from down South, what do you mean?’ And he said, ‘when I’m traveling, everywhere I go, each time I step into a blues club, I’m home’’” she remembers.

WEEK IN REVIEW: 10 men killed in citywide shootings

Michael Lansu — Mon, 23 Dec 2013 08:59:39 -0600

BY MICHAEL LANSU
Homicide Watch Chicago Editor

Ten men were shot to death throughout the city last week.

The most recent murder happened when 18-year-old Leroy Griffin was fatally shot in the 7900 block of South Lafayette Avenue about 7 p.m. Saturday, authorities said.

Several people got out of an SUV and opened fire on Griffin -- striking him in the head, authorities said. Detectives are investigating if the shooting was gang related, police said.

Griffin, of the 7500 block of South Langley Avenue, died about 20 minutes later at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

In the Belmont Crain neighborhood, Luciano Torres was in an SUV in the 4800 block of West Deming Place when a gunman in another SUV shot him in the head about 4:30 a.m. Saturday, authorities said.

Torres, 28, of the 2300 block of North Newland Avenue, died at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center about 12 hours later, according to the medical examiner’s office.

On Friday, Jeffrey Anderson was shot to death outside his Northwest Side home in the 2800 block of North Talman Street, authorities said.

Anderson, 28, was standing outside his home when two males approached on foot and shot him in the shoulder about 9:50 p.m., authorities said. Anderson went inside his home, collapsed and was dead at the scene.

On Thursday, Barnett Adams was shot to death during an argument in the 5600 block of West Chicago Avenue.

Adams, 33, was arguing with another man in the street when the man pulled out a gun and shot Adams in the shoulder and leg about 5:10 p.m., authorities said.

Adams, of the 600 block of North Waller Avenue, died at Mount Sinai Hospital about an hour later, according to the medical examiner's office.

In the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, 19-year-old Andre Hunter was shot multiple times and found on a sidewalk in the 7700 block of South Stewart Avenue about 2:40 p.m. Thursday, authorities said.

Hunter, of the 7900 block of South Princeton Avenue, died about an hour later at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, according to the medical examiner’s office.

In the South Shore community, 74-year-old Willie Cooper was found shot multiple times in a vehicle in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue about 4:45 a.m. Thursday, authorities said.

Cooper, of the of 6800 block of South Crandon Avenue, was dead on the scene, according to the medical examiner’s office.

About an hour later, Chicago blues musician Eric "Guitar" Davis was shot dead inside a vehicle three blocks north in the 6700 block of South East End Avenue, authorities said.

Davis, 41, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston Avenue in Riverdale, was pronounced dead at the scene, the medical examiner’s office said.

Chicago blues legend Linsey Alexander said Davis was hanging out at North Side blues bar Kingston Mines Wednesday night.

In the Gage Park neighborhood, 27-year-old Salvador Diaz had just exited a vehicle in the 5300 block of South Talman Avenue when a gunman walked up and shot him about 2:50 a.m. Thursday, authorities said.

Diaz tried to run away, but eventually collapsed in a nearby alley, authorities said. Emergency crews found Diaz, of the 500 block of South Spaulding Avenue, in an alley and later he died at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, authorities said.

The five homicides on Thursday were the most in a single day since Oct. 9.

On Tuesday, 16-year-old Christopher Ramirez was shot in the 2600 block of South Trumbull Avenue about 10:30 p.m., authorities said.

Ramirez was walking when a male exited the passenger side of a van and shot in the head, authorities said.

Ramirez, of the 2800 block of South Trumbull Avenue, died at Mount Sinai Hospital at 8:39 p.m. Wednesday, according to the medical examiner’s office.

On Monday, 17-year-old Ladarius Brisco was found shot in the head in the 8200 block of South Champlain Avenue about 1 p.m., authorities said.

Brisco, of the 8200 block of South Vernon Avenue, died at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County Wednesday afternoon, according to the medical examiner’s office.

Chicago blues musician Eric "Guitar" Davis killed in South Shore shooting

Michael Lansu — Thu, 19 Dec 2013 19:20:31 -0600

BY MICHAEL LANSU
Homicide Watch Chicago Editor

A Chicago blues guitarist was shot to death early Thursday in the South Shore neighborhood.

Officers found the 41-year-old man shot multiple times inside a vehicle in the 6700 block of South East End Avenue about 5:20 a.m., police said. He was dead on the scene.

Eric “Guitar” Davis, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston Avenue in Riverdale, was pronounced dead at the scene, the Cook County medical examiner's office said.

Chicago blues legend Linsey Alexander said Davis was hanging out at North Side blues bar Kingston Mines Wednesday night. Nobody answered the phone at the club Thursday afternoon.

“The last time I did open mic he was there with his kids,” Alexander said. “He had a good personality. He didn’t try to harm nobody.”

Eric “Guitar” Davis and the Troublemakers were scheduled to play Sophie’s in Clinton, Ill., later this month, said club manager Rudy Barrera. Davis was scheduled to play three shows at The Beale on Broadway in St. Louis after Christmas, according to his website.

“He put a lot of energy into his shows,” Barrera said. “He was very personable when you talked to him. Very happy … very laid back.”

“A lot of musicians have a little ego, but this guy was just good. He was fun and involved the crowd. He would bring a lot of people on stage … He had a lot of energy and carried the whole place on his shoulder.”

Fans took to social media as word of Davis’ death spread. On the Eric “Guitar” Davis and the Troublemakers Facebook page, Lou DiMenna posted “RIP A huge loss to the blues community. My heart goes out to his family.”

Area South detectives are investigating.

-- Contributing: Tina Sfondeles