Two brothers, 17 and 22, were being held without bail Thursday in the fatal shooting of a WGN security guard who was a mother of two, according to officials and the news station.
About 3 p.m. Monday, Salena Claybourne, 35, was headed home from work and was in her vehicle after pumping gas at her regular station in the 6700 block of South Jeffery Boulevard in the Jackson Park Highlands neighborhood when a man who wanted to steal her vehicleshot her after seeing her security jacket, prosecutors said at a bond hearing Wednesday.
Claybourne was shot in the left shoulder and face and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she later died, Chicago police said.
Claybourne was pronounced dead at 3:35 p.m. Monday due to multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Dameonte Watson, 17, was charged as an adult with first-degree murder and attempted aggravated vehicular hijacking while his brother Gregory Watson, 22, of the Oakland neighborhood, was also charged with first-degree murder, police said.
Gregory Watson, who appeared in court Thursday, was denied bail by a Cook County judge.
After his arrest, Watson told investigators “this wasn’t supposed to happen,” prosecutors said in court. Watson said he “wanted her car and that was it” but the victim was “reaching and pushing him.”
He “flashed his gun so the victim could see it,” and he didn’t know how many times his gun went off, according to prosecutors.
His brother Dameonte appeared in court Wednesday before Cook County Judge Barbara Dawkins, who ordered that he be held without bail. Prosecutors said the brothers did not know Claybourne.
After she finished pumping gas, Claybourne got back into her vehicle, and another vehicle pulled up beside her on the other side of the island, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said in court.
What unfolded was captured on surveillance video and witnessed by the gas station manager, who knew Claybourne was a regular customer.
The brothers got out of that vehicle, and the older brother, who was wearing all black and a ski mask, went up to Claybourne as the younger brother, also wearing all black but with “bright red underwear,” went up to the passenger side, Murphy said.
The video shows the older brother leaned toward Claybourne’s driver’s side and shot her in the face and shoulder within seconds, Murphy said.
The manager of the gas station was in his vehicle when the shooting occurred, Murphy said. After the shooting, the manager saw the brothers run toward Jeffery Boulevard and the car they were in drove off without them. The manager gave police descriptions of the men, including the red clothing, to help identify them.
Detectives recovered two handguns from the area that the brothers ran after watching part of their route on private surveillance video, Murphy said. They found that two shell casings found at the scene were fired from one of the recovered guns.
The older brother told police that he and his brother wanted Claybourne’s car, but when he flashed his gun, he saw security on her jacket, Murphy said.
“This victim, who was coming home from work, was just trying to pump her gas, just trying to fill up her tank, and was in the process of leaving when these two defendants, two brothers, saw the opportunity and approached in order to hijack her vehicle,” Murphy said.
An attorney representing Dameonte Watson asserted that he was identified only by his red underwear and not by his face. He lives with his grandmother in Chicago, is suffering from a jaw injury and had invoked his Fifth Amendment rights, the attorney said.
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WGN said Claybourne’s family set up a GoFundMe to help her family.
“My name is Donna, and I have just lost my baby girl. My daughter was a beautiful person in and out and could put a smile on anyone’s face. She also has two daughters that are 15 years old and 14 years old that are grieving. We just found out that she didn’t have any insurance,” the GoFundMe said. “Please help my family and I give her the homegoing that she deserves. The rest of these funds will go out to her daughters. Please help us through this very trying time.”
Police Superintendent David Brown, at a news conference Wednesday, offered condolences to Claybourne’s family.
“We are grieving with this family, and we are doing everything we can to hopefully bring some small measure of closure to the family with this arrest,” he said. “But again, the deepest condolences to the family is really our utmost concern right now. Make sure that we do all we can bring the criminal justice system down to bear on these offenders — to send not only a message for these offenders but to others that would commit violent crime in this city.”
The brother were due back in court on March 28.
baiduhai’s Sarah Freishtat contributed.