On Sunday, January 21st, 2024, a young man named Romeo Nance went on an alleged killing spree. He shot nine people and killed eight of them. Shortly after, he died from a self-inflicted gunshot after a police standoff.
The question on everyone’s mind is the same. What caused Nance to go on this “Rampage of terror,” killing multiple people in less than 24 hours? Sadly, the authorities haven’t been able to figure out the answer to this mystery.
Dan Jungles, the chief deputy of criminal investigations at the Will County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters this in his statement. “We may never know the truth or motives,” he said. The Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans also said something similar in his press release. “We can’t get inside his head. We just don’t have any clue as to why he did what he did,” he said.
What’s more, Nance was related to most of the victims of these shootings. From various investigations, authorities have confirmed all the shootings took place on Sunday but happened in three different locations. He shot seven victims in two homes in Joilet, then shot two male victims at a nearby location.
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Luckily, one of the last two male victims survived the shooting. He is the lone survivor of the nine people Nance allegedly shot. Of these nine people, there were seven adults and two teenage girls.
Will County Coroner’s Office released the names of the adults but withheld those of the teens. Some of them include 20-year-old Alexandria Nance, 38-year-old Christine Esters, 47-year-old Tamaeka Nance, 35-year-old William Esters II and 31-year-old Joshua Nance.
The seven victims were also related to each other. Nance’s first set of victims was in a home in Joliet Township, according to police reports. The second set of victims was in a nearby residence.
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The officers were watching one of the homes on that block in relation to the two shootings they discovered. So, they went to a nearby house and knocked but also didn’t get a response.
“They knew that the house across the street was related to the individuals that resided at that house,” an official said. “They walked over there, and that’s when they discovered the blood and made entry into the house to look for injured individuals.”
The officials found two more victims in that house. At this point, the police launched a search for the suspect, Nance. This was because his last known address was on the block of the crime scenes. Later on Monday night, U.S. Marshals found Nance near Natalia, Texas.
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Officials said that it was “believed that [Romeo] Nance took his own life with a handgun following a confrontation with Texas law enforcement officials.” This is a very sad turn of events, as nobody knows what drove Nance to commit these homicides. Even policemen were shocked at the gory nature of the crime scenes.
Evans said to reporters, “I’ve been a policeman for 29 years. This is probably the worst crime scene I’ve ever been associated with.” The only survivor of these shootings was a 49-year-old man who had a non-fatal gunshot wound to his leg.
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