A surveillance photo of a person of interest in a fatal stabbing on the CTA Red Line at the Cermak-Chinatown station.
Chicago Police Department
The 40-year-old man — on parole for armed robbery — was arrested Monday in the South Shore neighborhood, a police source with knowledge of the investigation told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Chicago police have arrested a man in connection with a fatal stabbing aboard a Red Line train in Chinatown over the weekend.
The 40-year-old man was arrested Monday morning in the South Shore neighborhood, a police source with knowledge of the investigation told the Chicago Sun-Times. He had not been charged as of 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Shortly before 3 p.m. Saturday, Troy Johnson, 54, was on a southbound Red Line train near the Cermak-Chinatown station when he got into an argument with another man on the train, police said. The man took out a knife and stabbed Johnson several times in the chest before getting off the train and running away. Johnson was pronounced dead at the scene.
A day later, police released surveillance photos of two people — a man and a woman — who were wanted for questioning in the murder.
The woman saw her photo circulated in the media and voluntarily went to the police, the police source said. She told investigators the man in the surveillance photo was the person who stabbed Johnson, the source said. The woman is classified as a witness and not a suspect.
The woman told police that, after the stabbing, the suspect gave her the knife. She took another Red Line train north to the Fullerton station and hid the knife in a nearby flower pot, the source said. Security footage from DePaul University captured her putting the knife there. Detectives have recovered the weapon, which was still where she put it.
Other security cameras captured the man — who himself was cut during the stabbing — taking off his jean vest and using it to clean the knife, the source said. He also cut off a portion of the vest and used it as a bandage for his wound.
The Sun-Times is not naming the man since he has not yet been charged. Court records show he has been arrested dozens of times since 1997 on charges that include drug possession, aggravated assault, unlawful use of a weapon, battery, robbery and domestic battery.
Prior to being taken into custody Monday morning, he’d been arrested twice in 2019. In January, he was arrested on retail theft charges in the South Loop. In June, he was charged with assault after being arrested in South Shore.
Prison records show that the suspect has four previous felony convictions, three of which were for robbery.
In December 2014, he was sentenced to six years in prison after he pleaded guilty to an armed robbery in the 6800 block of South Jeffrey Boulevard. He was given credit for 388 days served at the Cook County Jail and he was released from prison on parole on March 7, 2019, prison records show.
