© 2024 Peoria Public Radio
A joint service of Bradley University and Illinois State University
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Peoria Man Charged With City's 2nd Homicide of the Year; 1st Homicide Still Unsolved

Peoria police have a 29-year-old man in custody for the 2nd homicide of the year.

Police were called to Lexington Hills Apartments about 6:30 Monday night on a report of man shot.  The victim, 19-year-old Jamon Lewis died at the scene. The Peoria County Coroner says preliminary autopsy result show Lewis was shot in the head, seemingly at close range. 

Jamon Lewis lived on NE Glendale Ave. Coroner Jamie Harwood says Lewis did not have defensive wounds and it’s still unclear why he was at the Lexington Hills apartments or who he was there to see. 

Peoria Police says Melvin Wallace turned himself in just after 10:30 last night and was later arrested for Lewis’s murder. Wallace is innocent until proven guilty.

UPDATE: The first homicide of the year is still unsolved. 22-year-old Kamry Harris was shot three times, once in the head at close range in a car in a garage off an alley a week ago.

The statement from the coroner notes Lewis was killed on Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday. He asks people to remember Kings words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”