Jan. 31--An Illinois Institute of Technology student killed his classmate with a large, thick tree branch after the two got into a dispute while driving home together from a North Side strip club, prosecutors said Saturday.
Security officers spotted Carlos Wilson, 43, holding the branch over 36-year-old Jermiron Morris early Thursday morning on IIT's campus, and were able to take Wilson into custody, Cook County prosecutors said in a hearing Saturday. Wilson, who was already on probation in an unrelated case, was ordered held without bail Saturday on a charge of violating his probation stemming from Morris' death.
Morris drove a truck for a living but wanted to own his own business, and won a scholarship to IIT after graduating from a Chicago city college, a friend told the Tribune this week.
On Thursday, Wilson and the victim were on their way back from a strip club on the city's North Side, prosecutors said. The two got into a dispute, and Morris pulled his vehicle over onto the shoulder of the Eisenhower Expressway. The two men continued to argue, and the argument became physical, prosecutors said.
The victim drove back to IIT's campus, where Wilson's vehicle was parked at a lot in the 3000 block of South Wabash Avenue. When they arrived, the two men got out of the vehicle and continued to argue. Wilson walked over to his vehicle and took the tree branch from out of his trunk, prosecutors said.
Wilson hit the side of the victim's head with the branch, and Morris fell to the ground, prosecutors said. From an adjacent parking lot, IIT safety officers saw Wilson holding the large stick over his shoulder and watched the victim fall to the ground. They saw Wilson then walk to the trunk of his vehicle, close the trunk, and get into the driver's seat, prosecutors said.
The officers approached Wilson's car as Wilson began to pull away. They placed Wilson in custody and found the tree branch in his trunk, prosecutors said.
When police arrived, Morris was on the ground, bleeding from the face, police said. He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.
Morris was an undergraduate at IIT majoring in industrial technology and management, according to the school's website. He entered the school in 2013 after working as a trucker and earning an associate's degree in logistics at Richard J. Daley College in Chicago.
