Associate Judge Raymond Myles, 66, was shot outside his home on the 9400 block of South Forest Avenue in the city’s West Chesterfield neighborhood. Myles died from his injuries, becoming the first Cook County judge in history to be murdered.
At a press conference Monday afternoon at police headquarters, Chicago Police Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples said Myles and his 52-year-old female companion were leaving their home to go workout when the incident happened at 4:50 a.m. The woman, who police would not identify, walked outside and got into a verbal altercation with a man before being shot in a leg.
“Upon hearing the commotion and the gunshot, Judge Myles exited his residence,” Staples said. “(He) exchanged words with the offender before he was fatally shot multiple times.”
The woman, who was able to call police and give a description of the offender, is expected to survive.
No items were taken from either victim or from the victims home police said, adding that they are investigating both that it was a random shooting and that Myles could have been an intended target. The only description the police offered of the suspect was that it was a black male.
While police were working all angles, the murder of a Cook County judge is new ground, even for gun-plagued Chicago. In the past, judges usually only made the news for wrong-doing and no Cook County judge has ever been murdered. In 2005, white supremacist Matthew Hale was sentenced to a 40-year federal prison term for soliciting an undercover FBI informant to kill Federal Judge Joan Lefkow, who presides over the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The FBI has issued a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.
Myles was involved in several high-profile cases through the years. He was the judge who ordered the murderer of three members of actress and singer Jennifer Hudson’s family to be held without bond.
Hudson’s brother-in-law, William Balfour, entered the Hudson family house in Englewood at gunpoint and fatally shot Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson, 57, in the living room and Hudson’s brother, Jason Hudson, 29, while he was still in bed. Her nephew, Julian King, 7, was shot to death as he lay behind the front seat of Jason Hudson’s white Chevrolet Suburban and his body was discovered in the vehicle three days later.