Testimony, DNA connect Harvey man to 2020 New Lenox gas station shooting

Chicago Tribune

12-03-2025

Testimony and DNA evidence presented in court Wednesday link a Harvey man, who claims an alibi, to the scene of the 2020 shooting of 19-year-old Charles Baird at a New Lenox gas station, witnesses said.
The defendant was 16 when prosecutors say he shot Baird in the back outside the Circle K gas station on Nelson Road while Baird was returning to the store. The defendant, now 21, was arrested 19 hours after the shooting on May 11, 2020 and charged as an adult.
Prosecutors presented witnesses Wednesday to show the black Hyundai Santa Fe the shooter was in had been stolen two days earlier from a home in Lockport. Circle K manager Patricia Hudgens testified Baird left the store after one of the Santa Fe's occupants was seen trying the door of his vehicle.
Hudgens said as Baird was returning after one of the occupants approached him, the man pulled out a gun and shot him in the back, she said.
Matthew Shanahan, previously an evidence technician for the New Lenox Police Department, said he recovered a fingerprint on the rear passenger door handle of Baird's Subaru, where one of the men tried to open it, and also found a cigarette butt with DNA in the Santa Fe.
A surgical mask, which a witness identified as being worn by one of the people who stole Nolte's car, was also found in the Santa Fe, Shanahan said.
Prosecutors said the evidence, including DNA from the crime scene, surveillance footage from the Circle K, matching descriptions from previous arrests and the defendant's statements made to officers after his arrest strongly implicate the defendant as the person who shot Baird.
Amiya Savage, a Chicago resident who was 16 at the time of the shooting, also testified she informed New Lenox police she believed the shooter to be the defendant. She also said after his arrest, he and his cousin called her, asking why she had told the police he was the one responsible.
Prosecutors plan to show the jail call made to Savage on Thursday.
Jason Strzelecki, a Will County public defender representing the accused shooter, said he in opening statements he will call the defendant's brother, who Strzelecki claims was with him the entire night of the shooting.
Strzelecki said there was no eyewitness testimony, no murder weapon and no confession that implicate his client.
The owner of the stolen Santa Fe, Gordon Nolte, testified he and his wife returned home from a grocery trip, parked the car in the garage, left the keys in the cupholder and left the garage door open.
'We went in, ate our lunch, and then I went upstairs and took a nap,' Nolte said. 'My wife came up and woke me up. We came downstairs and went to the utility room and opened the door. My car was not in the garage.'
Nolte's neighbor, Christina Marinucci, testified that while out for a walk she saw two people walking down the middle of the street, closely followed by a red car.
'I walk every day, and I never see anybody in the middle of the street walking like that, let alone being followed by another by a car that close behind them,' Marinucci said.
The pair then entered Nolte's garage and quickly drove off in his Hyundai Santa Fe, with both the red car and the Santa Fe leaving the neighborhood together, she said.
Prosecutors said the red car, a Hyundai Elantra, was later found at the defendant's home in Harvey. The stolen Santa Fe was recovered May 15, 2020, by Dolton police when they responded to an accident.
The Daily Southtown is not using the defendant's name because he was a minor at the time of the shooting. Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak will decide the case. The trial will resume Thursday at the Will County Courthouse in Joliet.