Teen in Clown Outfit Charged with Murder

A 15-year-old boy from Illinois has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a 78-year-old man in a ‘random attack’ while wearing a clown costume. The incident occurred on Monday around 10 p.m. near 76th and State streets in East St. Louis, where the victim, John Wesley Allen, was waiting at a bus stop.

According to Illinois State Police, the unidentified teen had ‘the intent to kill or do great bodily harm’ to Allen, who was stabbed with a knife multiple times, causing his death. The teen was arrested on Monday night after police found him at a nearby home and was charged with first-degree murder on Thursday. Prosecutors are also seeking to have the teen tried as an adult, a decision that will be left to the court.

Doorbell camera footage obtained by KSDK showed a person in a clown outfit with a partially covered face approaching a home and saying, ‘I have a gift for you,’ less than an hour before the attack. Neighbors reported seeing the teenager going door to door, looking into windows and carrying a weapon. One neighbor, Corrine Spry, described the teen as ‘twirling a knife, and it was a pretty big knife…the light gleamed off of it.’

Allen’s family remembered him as a kind and devoted man who was loved by those around him. He was a father of three, brother, uncle, and Navy veteran who regularly took the bus to visit family members throughout the Metro East area. His sister, Marie Stanford, said, ‘He’s just a good person. That’s the reason I couldn’t possibly think nothing would happen to him.’

Allen’s family supports prosecutors’ efforts to try the teen as an adult, saying the loss has deeply affected their loved ones. His niece, Tenia Stanford, said, ‘My mom, my uncle and them, they have to live this for the rest of their life. Their baby brother is gone.’