Police linked a July 2021 road slaying to a high-profile gang-related Hammond birthday party shooting over a year later, records show.
Damonte “MG Montae” Jones, 24, of Chicago, was charged on Nov. 20 with murder and attempted murder.
He was extradited last week from Cook County. His next court date is Dec. 20.
Thomas Hill, 33, of Chicago, shot five times, died in the road shooting and the woman with him was wounded. His death was ruled a homicide.
Authorities said the slaying grew out of a deadly rivalry between the Gangster Disciples and Black Disciples, documents show.
Police arrived at 12:15 a.m. at the GoLo gas station, 7306 Indianapolis Blvd. in Hammond. Hill was found “unresponsive,” shot in the head in the driver’s seat of a 2004 GMC van. The vehicle had crashed and was in the lot.
The woman told cops they both were shot multiple times near 175th Street and Indianapolis Boulevard as they were heading back to Interstate 80/94.
They had left a birthday party at Up Your Alley in Schererville when it closed at midnight and were headed north on Indianapolis Boulevard when someone opened fire at the van.
Police later learned the party was for a known Black Disciples member.
Investigators estimated at least 30 shots were fired. Hill was pronounced dead. The woman was taken to Advocate Christ in Oak Lawn, Illinois. She didn’t see who shot them.
Video footage showed a black Dodge Caravan, a stolen Jeep Grand Cherokee and a gray Chrysler Town & Country leave the parking lot around the time Hill did.
At first, the vehicles were in front of Hill’s van. By the Highland-Hammond border, surveillance footage showed the Jeep, Caravan, then Town and Country following Hill. The shooting was not caught on camera.
The Caravan was later found abandoned on I-80/94 near Torrence Avenue. A 9-mm casing found outside the van matched the ones at the crime scene.
While an Illinois Department of Transportation employee was parked near the van, a couple of men pulled up in front of another van, asking if it could be towed. When told no, they pulled off.
Police traced the Caravan’s registry to a multi-unit building on the 7000 block of South Morgan Street in Chicago, where cops also saw the Town & Country.
Soon, the case went dormant.
After a Sept. 25, 2022, shooting at Serenity Lounge, 6217 Kennedy Ave., in Hammond killed one man and wounded three others at a birthday party, investigators linked some involved to Hill’s slaying, records show.
Officers found Brian Leonard, 29, of Chicago, and three others nearby shot “multiple” times, charges state. Leonard was pronounced dead at 2:45 a.m. at the hospital, according to the Lake County Coroner’s Office. His death was ruled a homicide.
Leonard was a rival gang member to the Gangster Disciples, records allege.
Daquan Pierce, Marcus Mathis, Cordero Miller, Joseph Smith and Brian Emory are charged in connection with that slaying.
One of Smith’s cellphones was recovered after the Serenity Lounge shooting. When it was extracted, it had a group chat that appeared to show plotting on the night of Hill’s death. Smith sent a screenshot of the flyer for the Up Your Alley birthday party to the group chat. Jones was believed to be in the Jeep, closest to Hill’s van.
North Chicago Police recovered an AK-47 in November 2021 linked to Hill’s killing.
mcolias@post-trib.com
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