PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The trial for a Peoria teen accused of shooting and killing another man nearly a year ago will go to trial in March.
That’s the word from Peoria County Circuit Judge John Vespa who continued the trial of Lamarion Wright until March 11. That’s because he was unavailable on the previous setting of Jan. 8, 2024.
Wright was charged with murder while he was 16 for the Sept. 20, 2022, shooting death of of Christopher L. Tillman, 46, in the 600 block of Northeast Adams Street.
He was identified as a suspect fairly early in the case due to the clothing he wore the night of the shooting. Surveillance cameras from a nearby construction site caught the incident.
Tillman, who was in a white shirt, was seen arguing with another person, a man dressed in a black sweatshirt with a stuffed animal around his waist. Tillman started to run off and the other person, Wright, was seen on the video shooting at him.
Wright’s age, 16, and the nature of the charges, murder, meant his case was automatically transferred from the juvenile division of Peoria County Circuit Court to the adult felony division.
He faces a maximum of 40 years behind bars instead of a maximum of 60 years due to rulings by the Illinois Supreme Court in the past that capped what a juvenile can face.
He remains in custody at the county’s Juvenile Detention Center.
