A 34-year-old Chatham neighborhood woman was denied bail Saturday accused of the fatal March shooting of a 28-year-old man outside an Elmhurst bar, prosecutors said.
Robin Thornton was arrested Wednesday when Cook County sheriff’s officers executed a search warrant at her home and found a firearm matching shell casings found at the scene of the fatal shooting of 28-year-old Dominique Bynum, according to a Cook County sheriff’s release.
Thornton, of the 8000 block of South Calumet Avenue in Chicago’s Chatham neighborhood, was charged with murder and appeared before Cook County Judge David Navarro, who denied bail during a hearing that was livestreamed on YouTube.
A motive for the attack was not made clear by prosecutors, but it began shortly after 2 a.m. March 26, when police were called to the Galway Bar and Grill, 12045 Roosevelt Road, in unincorporated Proviso Township near Elmhurst after being notified of a person shot in the parking lot.
Thornton was in the tavern with a group when a witness from another group, which included Bynum, began fighting, according to prosecutors.
Both groups were asked to leave by staffers, and as Thornton and her friends walked to their car in the parking lot, another witness was seated in her car, parked adjacent to Thornton’s car.
That witness spotted Thornton enter her vehicle and retrieve something. At that point, Bynum and two of his friends walked across the lot, and “words were exchanged” between the two groups but no physical fights erupted, prosecutors said.
As Bynum and the two were “standing back” across the lot, Thornton “pulled a firearm from her hip area,” and when one of the three began running, Thornton “pursued” that person.
When Bynum also began running after the same person, Thornton fired three shots at him, and one hit Bynum in the left chest and he fell to the ground, prosecutors said.
Thornton fled the scene, and Bynum was taken to Elmhurst Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy by the DuPage County coroner’s office determined Bynum, of Melrose Park, died of a gunshot wound to the torso, according to prosecutors.
Police recovered three 9 mm shell casings in the middle of the lot and an opened folding knife underneath Bynum’s SUV, near his body.
At least one of the witnesses identified Thornton in a photo array, and portions of the attack were caught on surveillance camera, prosecutors said.
Thornton’s attorney, Cook County Assistant Public Defender Courtney Smallwood, said she is a lifelong Cook County resident who lives on Chicago’s South Side with her two children, ages 6 and 13. She graduated from high school and completed some college courses at Kennedy-King, Smallwood said.
Thornton, who has no criminal background, has held the same full-time position at JPMorgan Chase as an “operations specialist” for 13 years, according to Smallwood. Additionally, she holds a valid firearm owner’s identification card and concealed carry license.
Before denying bail, Navarro told Thornton if she were to be convicted, she may still face a sentence of natural life in prison.
“It is regardless of the fact that you do not have any prior criminal history,” Navarro said. “It is regardless of the fact that you’ve got an FOID, a concealed carry license.”
Thornton is due back in court on April 27 in Maywood.
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