The night a popular Illinois State University student was slain in her off-campus apartment, the accused murderer told an acquaintance “he felt like killing someone” and wanted to “become a martyr and get his name in the news,” McLean County prosecutors alleged at his bond hearing Friday.
Maurice Wallace, 27, of Normal is being held on $2 million bail, charged with the Oct. 13 murder of Olamide Adeyooye, 21, a senior from west suburban Berkeley. Prosecutors said she died of severe bleeding “due to penetrating injury.”
McLean County Judge Rebecca Foley scheduled an arraignment for Dec. 9 on the charges of first-degree murder, concealment of a homicide and possession of a stolen automobile.
Andy Wildrick, 21, of Normal, Adeyooye’s longtime boyfriend, said he was disgusted by what he heard in court Friday.
“I hope he has no chance ever of harming anybody else. He’s already screwed up enough lives as it is because he felt depressed,” Wildrick said.
Adeyooye, a Proviso West High School graduate, disappeared Oct. 13. A weeklong hunt drew national attention before her badly burned body was found in the remains of an abandoned chicken coop that had been set ablaze near Meridian, Miss.
On Friday, McLean County Assistant State’s Atty. Kim Campbell alleged Wallace made a phone call about 8 p.m. on Oct. 13 to a person she would not identify. “He stated that he was depressed and wanted to leave the country and that he felt like killing someone to pursue his personal cause, become a martyr, and get his name in the news,” she said.
Wallace had moved into an apartment just 150 yards from Adeyooye’s one-bedroom apartment. Adeyooye was acquainted with Wallace, but the two were not friends and did not have a dating relationship, Campbell said.
Around 9 p.m. on Oct. 13, Adeyooye rented some videos, records show. At 10:45 p.m., a man walking near Adeyooye’s second-floor apartment heard a scream, Campbell said.
Police later found a bloody fingerprint of Wallace’s in Adeyooye’s apartment, Campbell said. They also found a large amount of blood, evidence that someone attempted to clean bloodstains from the floor with bleach, and a trail of blood leading down the back stairs of Adeyooye’s second-floor apartment and into the parking lot, Campbell said.
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Wallace was arrested on fraud charges Oct. 20 in Atlanta, where police found Adeyooye’s car. Wallace was driving a rental car at the time of his arrest, and police found Wallace’s belongings and Adeyooye’s keys in it, Campbell said.
Wallace’s aunt, Rose Wallace, 53, of Bloomington, said her nephew lived with her in Chicago from age 10 to 16. She said Wallace graduated from Marshall High School in Chicago.
“What I am hearing now, I can’t believe that,” she said after Friday’s hearing. “My heart is hurting, but I can’t do anything about it. I hate to see him in there, and I hate what happened to that young girl.”
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