June 16--A man has been charged in the Sunday fatal stabbing of another man during a fight between the two homeless men in the city's Uptown neighborhood.
Ross Feiwell, 58, of the 4700 block of North Malden Street, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 49-year-old Thomas Sawyer, police said Tuesday in a news release.
About 9:45 p.m. Sunday, officers were called to the scene of a fight at a bus stop in front of a Target store on the 4400 block of North Broadway, officials said.
According to prosecutors, Feiwell was in a bus shelter when Sawyer approached holding a wooden pole. Witnesses saw Feiwell changing clothes in the bus stop when Sawyer poked him with a stick, prosecutors said. Feiwell, who had a metal chain in his hands, told the other man to "steer clear" before the two began to fight.
The two argued, and Feiwell pulled a black-handled knife with a 6-inch blade from his suitcase, swung the chain around Sawyer's stick and pulled him close, then stabbed him in the neck, witnesses told police.
Feiwell used the chain to take the pole away from Sawyer and then stabbed him in the neck with a knife. The knife hit an artery, police said. Feiwell then hit Sawyer once with the pole.
Feiwell then wiped the knife off on his shorts and put it back in the suitcase, witnesses told police.
"I was protecting my house, he was going to piss in my house," responding officers said Feiwell told them.
Prosecutors said the slaying happened as traffic went by on Broadway and shoppers came in and out of the Target store.
Sawyer, of the 4600 block of North Broadway, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:18 p.m. Sunday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. An autopsy revealed Monday that Sawyer died of a stab wound to the neck, according to the medical examiner's office.
Feiwell was taken into custody and identified as the person who stabbed Sawyer, police said.
Feiwell's public defender, Marijane Placek, told the judge that her client had requested to see a rabbi because the Illuminati were after him. While he was in court, Feiwell twice pointed at another public defender, called her a prosecutor, the devil and a part of the Illuminati.
"Look what you did to Anita Hill," Feiwell told the judge after apparently trying to quote Kathy Bates from her performance in "Misery." Feiwell, who had three deputies behind him, also repeatedly called out "lies" or "that's a lie" as a prosecutor read the proffer.
Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. ordered Feiwell held on no bail. He also entered a health order for Feiwell to receive treatment while at the jail.
