Prosecutors told a judge on Saturday that a Chatham man sexually assaulted one of his roommates at their South Side home on Thursday while another roommate he strangled lay covered in a sheet in the next room.
After letting the woman go, Jerry Powe, 58, walked into a police station and allegedly told officers, “I killed my girlfriend,” according to his arrest report. Powe is now charged with separate counts of first-degree murder, three counts of sexual assault and one count of kidnapping.
South Side man to face judge in Chatham apartment strangulation, assault
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One victim, identified in court documents as Shaton Ladd, 36, was found dead inside the residence in a three-story building at 8119 S. Ellis Ave. shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday. A second woman, 28, who prosecutors would say was the second roommate, had reported to police that she was assaulted by a man in the same apartment, authorities said.
An autopsy performed Friday confirmed that the cause of death was strangulation and was ruled a homicide, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
While prosecutors said the exact nature of the trio’s relationship was unclear, they said Powe had previously exchanged sex for money with one of the victims. Powe and the two women lived together in the apartment since July, according to prosecutors. Powe slept in a bedroom by the front door, Ladd on the living room couch, and the second roommate in her own bedroom down the hall.
Powe admitted to strangling Ladd sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning as she lay on a couch, authorities said. He then covered her nude body with a bedsheet.
The second roommate had been working the night shift at an Amazon facility in Joliet during this time, prosecutors said. She returned home around 7 a.m., and initially did not notice Ladd’s body.
According to the prosecutors, Powe entered the second victim’s room with a firearm shortly after she returned, and allegedly ordered her to have sex with him.
Powe then dragged the second victim into his room, at which point she saw Ladd’s lifeless body on the couch, prosecutors said. He threatened to do the same harm to the second woman if she did not do what he wanted, prosecutors said. Holding a gun, Powe forced the second woman to perform several sex acts, they added.
Following the alleged assault, Powe told the second woman that he regretted his actions, and eventually allowed her to leave, according to court documents. The woman contacted a friend and explained that she had been raped, and they contacted the police.
Powe was arrested around 10:30 a.m. Thursday after walking into a Grand Crossing police station, nearly two miles from the South Ellis Avenue apartment. He gave a “detailed admission” of the murder of the first woman, according to prosecutors, but denied sexually assaulting the second woman, claiming it was consensual.
Citing Powe’s “callous and total disregard for life,” in both killing Ladd and sexually assaulting his second roommate, along with a “serious and decades-long” criminal record, Judge James Costello approved the prosecution’s petition for detention.
Powe is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
Tribune reporter Lila Hemper-Edgers contributed to this report.