Joliet, Illinois – A string of tragic shootings left eight people dead in Joliet over the course of two days, with the suspect in the killings eventually being found dead by an apparent suicide in Texas, 1,200 miles away on Monday night, according to police.
The violence began with a man found shot to death in an unincorporated area just outside Joliet proper, which led to the discovery of seven more people shot and killed in two separate houses in the 2200 block of West Acres Road near Madison Street. Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans described the crime scene as one of the worst he had seen in his 29-year career.
The suspect, a 23-year-old man named Romeo Nance, was sought by multiple law enforcement agencies and was believed to have been driving a red Toyota Camry. It was later revealed that Nance knew the victims found in the two houses, and it was believed that they were all related.
Meanwhile, a separate shooting incident on Davis Street in Joliet and an earlier shooting in an unincorporated area outside the city seemed to have no connection to the later killings, except for the fact that the same car with the same license plate associated with Nance was spotted at both scenes, the Will County Sheriff’s office said.
The spree of violence came to a shocking end when Nance was spotted by U.S. Marshals in Natalia, Texas – 30 miles southwest of San Antonio – but was found dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after a confrontation with law enforcement. Prior to this, Nance had a record of an arrest for aggravated discharge of a weapon involving a woman and was out on bond while awaiting trial.
The tragedy left the neighborhood shaken, with residents expressing shock and fear over the proximity of the violence to their serene community. “I’m speechless. I can’t even really talk about it,” said one woman. “It’s shocking to me that this stuff doesn’t just happen on TV. It’s real.”