Man Jailed in Connection With Sunday Murder on the Hill

The police apprehended the alleged killer behind Sunday’s ambush gun attack on the Hill.

Ex-convict Lonnie Pinnick, 24, was charged with slaying 22-year-old SjonTre Thompson early Sunday. He also allegedly wounded a 28-year-old woman in the same shooting.

Pinnick was released from prison just three months ago. He did a year and four months on aggravated battery and weapon charges.

In connection with the Sunday slaying, on top of murder, aggravated battery and weapon charges, Pinnick was hit with a parole violation.

Pinnick allegedly walked up on Thompson and the woman as they sat in a vehicle parked on Englewood Avenue. He raked the car with bullet and then ran off, police said.

Just four days earlier, in almost the exact same spot Thompson was gunned down, another Joliet man was shot in the leg.

Officers sent to the area early Wednesday morning found no sign of a crime but soon learned a 21-year-old man was at Silver Cross with a bullet wound to his calf.

Officers met with the man at the hospital and he told them he was walking along when he heard gunshots and was hit in the calf. The wounded man gave police no description of his attacker.

Pinnick lives a mere eight blocks from the scene of both shootings. Detectives do not believe the two gun attacks are connected, said Deputy Chief Al Roechner.

Pinnick was identified as the killer Thursday morning, Roechner said. The police staked out his house and followed him when he was picked up in a car and driven away. Officers stopped the car near the corner of Center and Lafayette streets but Pinnick made a run for it, Roechner said. He was captured after a short chase.

Pinnick was allegedly carrying a pistol when he was taken into custody.

Roechner said Pinnick acted alone in killing Thompson.

“We’re not looking for anyone else,” he said.

Pinnick’s bond was set at $3 million.

Thompson was the brother of 21-year-old Sjolante Crowder, according to the obituary for their mother, Sabrina Hill-Morgan. In September 2013,Crowder was sentenced to life in prison for killing two teens in a gun attack the year prior.

Crowder shot down Delasse Lanier, 18, and Adrian Knox, 17, and wounded 20-year-old Jonathan Caples. The three men were standing in a crowd on Second Avenue when Crowder slunk up behind them and opened fire at close range.

Thompson’s sister, according to the obituary, was Chinesicia Hill-King. Hill-King’s bullet-ridden corpse was found in a Zurich Road ditch in March. She had been missing for two months before her body was discovered.

Hill-King’s boyfriend, Michael C. Brock, 24, turned up dead in an Ottawa Street alley about the same time Hill-King vanished. The police initially investigated his death as a hit-and-run but later said he was shot once before he was struck by a car.

A woman who let Hill-King and Brock live in her Joliet home for a time before their relationship soured told how she figured the couple would come to a bad end.

“I knew something bad was going to happen because they were doing so much dirty stuff to people,” said Joan Watkins, 59.

“I hate that she got killed,” said Watkins, “but I knew something bad was going to happen.”