Murder Of Charlie Baird: Daring Daytime Crime Preceded Shooting

JOLIET — The Will County State's Attorney's Office team of prosecutors spent several hours during Wednesday's murder trial against Kevin Johnson showing Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak the escalating criminal activity leading up to the midnight murder of New Lenox gas station customer 19-year-old Charles "Charlie" Baird.

Baird was shot in the back at the Circle K gas station in May 2020. He died of his gunshot wounds days later. Video surveillance from the gas station showed that a carload of people pulled into the Circle K and circled the gas pumps, then someone got out of the car and tried to break into the back passenger door of Baird's vehicle while he was inside the convenience store.

When Baird returned, walking toward his vehicle, one of the backseat passengers stepped outside the other car and shot him in the back, before the car sped away.

The vehicle used to commit the New Lenox gas station homicide came from the garage of a man from Lockport.

Gordon Nolte Jr. testified for the prosecution, telling the courtroom that he and his wife were victims of a car theft on May 9, 2020.

The deadly shooting of Baird at the New Lenox gas station pump happened around midnight on May 11, 2020. Baird died of his injuries two days later in Cook County at Christ Hospital.

Johnson, from Harvey, was 16 years old when New Lenox police arrested him for the murder.

During Wednesday's trial testimony, prosecutor Katie Rabenda asked Nolte about his own role of being a crime victim, in connection with the homicide.

Nolte told the courtroom that on May 9, 2020, he and his wife had owned a black 2017 Hyundai Santa Fe "for about three years." The Noltes bought the car when it was new.

When the prosecutor asked if Nolte recognized one of her murder trial exhibits, a photo that she handed him as part of her case against Johnson, the Lockport man responded, "it's my car."

The prosecutor asked Nolte to recall what happened on the afternoon of May 9, 2020.

"Me and my wife returned home from grocery shopping," Nolte testified. "Ate our lunch and I went upstairs to take a nap."

Nolte told the judge that he had parked his Hyundai Santa Fe in his garage and kept his garage door open that afternoon.

Rabenda then asked him to explain where had put the keys.

"In the cupholder," Nolte testified.

The cupholder, as in the cupholder inside the car.

Later, that afternoon, Nolte's wife came into his room and alerted him to a crisis.

"My wife came up and woke me up," he testified. "We came down into the utility room to the garage. My car was not in the garage."

The prosecutor inquired if the Lockport knew Kevin Johnson, the New Lenox murder defendant?

"No," he replied.

Was there any reason for Nolte to let Johnson or any other strangers borrow his car?

"No," he answered.

Did Nolte give anyone permission to use his car for Uber or Lyft services?

"No," he repeated.

The prosecutor also told the courtroom that when Nolte's stolen car was eventually recovered, the Lockport man's I-Pass transponder had been stolen.

Rabenda asked Nolte if the black face mask recovered on the backseat floor or the glove recovered from the car were his?

"No," he answered.

"What time did you put your vehicle in your garage," Rabenda asked.

"I would say probably around noon," he testified.

When asked what time his car was stolen, Nolte answered he did not know.

After excusing the witness from the courtroom, Rabenda summoned one of Nolte's Lockport subdivision neighbors to testify. Ring camera footage from the subdivision showed that the crime happened shortly after 2:35 p.m.

Christina Marinucci testified that on May 9, 2020, she was on her regular walk along Eastlake Parkway when she spotted two people followed closely by a car slowly creeping all the street. The two people were zigzagging back and forth between yards. The entire event was unusual because she never saw people walking in the middle of the street with a car trailing them.

It was a red or orange Honda or Hyundai, she said.

"They hopped in the car and got out and walked and ran into neighbor's garage," Marinucci testified.

The thieves who stole Nolte's black Hyundai Santa Fe almost crashed into another neighbor while fleeing. The neighbor who was almost hit was in a motorized wheelchair, Marinucci pointed out.

"It went east, further into my neighborhood," Marinucci recalled. "I was already on the phone with 911, that the car was stolen out of someone's garage."

Ring camera videos played during Wednesday's trial showed the stolen car pull up to the first car in the middle of Eastlake Parkway at 2:37 p.m.

"The black one was the one stolen," Marinucci testified.

The next prosecution witness, Jason Talley, a long-time supervisor of operations at the Illinois Tollway, testified he obtained data indicating the stolen vehicle from Lockport passed through a handful of different toll plazas between May 9-11,2020.

On one occasion, Nolte's stolen Lockport car exited Interstate 294 at Halsted. Another time it headed northbound on I-57, and on the afternoon of May 9, about 10 minutes after the car theft in Lockport, the car entered Interstate 355 at Route 6.

Other portions of Wednesday's testimony included several police from New Lenox, Lockport and one detective from Midlothian testifying about their roles of collecting the clothing and DNA buccal swabs of Johnson, their murder suspect, after his incarceration at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center for unrelated crimes.

Among the key police officials to testify on Wednesday: Micah Nuesse, current New Lenox deputy police chief of operations, Lockport police officer Jeff Dopke, now-retired New Lenox police evidence technician Paul Simon, FBI special agent Matthew Shanahan, formerly of the New Lenox Police Department, Lt. Adam Thibo of Midlothian's Police Department and New Lenox Police Detective Thomas Lynch.

New Lenox police also seized the stolen car from Lockport after the vehicle was involved in a wreck in Dolton, a few days after Baird was shot at the Circle K gas station on Nelson Road.

The prosecution also called 21-year-old Chicago woman Amiya Savage to testify, and she acknowledged she was a reluctant witness, agreeing only to testify after being served with a subpoena. Prosecutors sought to introduce testimony from Savage suggesting that she learned that Johnson was the shooter responsible for the New Lenox gas station slaying, but her testimony did little to bolster the prosecution's case.

On several occasions Wednesday afternoon, Will County Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak, who is deciding the case, scolded Savage, telling the witness that she could not understand anything that Savage was saying.

The prosecution eventually asked Savage about a phone call she received last August. Savage described it as a three-way phone call from someone who claimed to be Johnson's cousin, and Johnson was supposedly on the call from the Will County Jail.

"His cousin three-wayed them," Savage testified. "You merge the calls together."

The person calling Savage was trying to find out whether Savage had helped New Lenox police build their case against Johnson, according to the witness testimony. During questions from the trial lawyers, Savage testified she did not know the defendant by his real first and last name, only as someone who goes by "Kev-O."

"He didn't start out the call threatening," she said.

Johnson's trial resumes with more prosecution witnesses on Thursday at 10:30 a.m.