Just before 11 p.m. on April 14, 1996, 24-year-old Edward “Jay” Binion was shot to death during a home invasion of his apartment in Chicago, Illinois.
Binion’s girlfriend, Chauna Wilkins, told police that Binion had returned to the apartment at about 10:30 with 20-year-old Jimmy Slaughter. Several of her friends were at the apartment. Wilkins said that when she joined the men in the kitchen, she saw another man wearing a mask holding a gun to Binion’s head. Binion told her to get the drug money. They all went to another room and retrieved some money. Another person entered the room and asked about the rest of the money. The masked gunman kicked Binion in the face. At some point during the incident, Wilkins said, 17-year-old Willie Daugherty entered the apartment. Later, Wilkins said, the masked gunman took Wilkins and Binion to another room and shot Binion in the head.
Officers with the Chicago Police Department, including Detective William Moser and James O’Brien, arrested Slaughter the next day. Slaughter said in a statement that Daugherty and 15-year-old Fernando Gilbert were involved in the robbery. Daugherty was arrested on the morning of April 16 and said in a statement that 17-year-old Robert Johnson was the man wearing a mask during the home invasion.
Officers arrested Johnson later that day. He said in a statement that he had seen Slaughter, Gilbert, Daugherty, and a man named “Tremaine” when he went to the corner store for his grandmother that night. (He lived about a third of a mile south of Binion’s apartment.) Johnson said the four young men asked him to join them for the robbery, but he declined and went home.
Johnson, Gilbert, Slaughter, and Daugherty were each charged with murder, armed robbery, and home invasion.
On April 25, 1997, Slaughter filed a motion in Cook County Circuit Court to suppress the statement he made to police. He said that police had failed to read him his Miranda rights and that his statement was the result of police coercion. He said police kept in a locked room for 42 hours between 2 a.m. on April 15 and 8 p.m. April 16. The only time he left was to take a polygraph test. He said a police officer kicked him during the interrogation. Gilbert would later file a similar motion to suppress his statement. He did not allege any physical abuse, but he said officers did not properly advise him of his rights and did not make any attempt to notify his parents of his situation. (These motions were never ruled upon.)
Johnson’s trial began on May 13, 1997. Daugherty had agreed to testify against Johnson as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
Daugherty testified that the group planned to rob Binion of drug money and that Johnson was the masked man who pointed a gun at Binion. He testified that he left the apartment prior to the actual shooting.
Wilkins testified about the home invasion. She said that Johnson and Binion were friends, and that she had met Johnson on numerous occasions. In court, she identified Daugherty and Slaughter as two of the four men that took part in the crime but did not identify Johnson as the masked man. She also testified that the masked man talked extensively during the home invasion and that she did not recognize his voice as Johnson’s.
O’Brien testified briefly, but he was not questioned about the interviews conducted with Johnson or any of his co-defendants.
Johnson did not testify. Evelyn Binion, the victim’s brother, testified as the sole defense witness. She said that Johnson and Jay were good friends, which Johnson’s attorney later used to argue that their friendship would have precluded Johnson taking part in the robbery.
The jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder, armed robbery, and home invasion on May 14, 1997. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison on the murder conviction, 25 years for the armed robbery, and 25 years for the home invasion. The lesser sentences were to run concurrently, giving a combined sentence of 80 years in prison.
After Johnson’s trial, Daugherty pled guilty to armed robbery and home invasion. The state dismissed the murder charge, and he received a sentence of 15 years in prison. Gilbert and Slaughter entered similar pleas, and also received sentences of 15 years in prison.
Johnson appealed the harshness of his sentence, particularly in light of the sentences received by his co-defendants. On July 22, 1999, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First Judicial District, affirmed the sentence. The court said it was improper for Johnson to compare the sentence he received after a trial to one received after a plea. In addition, the court said, Johnson had shown no remorse for the murder.
In 2003, Daugherty recanted his testimony. In an affidavit, he said Johnson took no part in the robbery and murder and had no knowledge of the crime. “I was scared and took refuge in committing perjury,” Daugherty said. “I would like to rectify all my lies and un-truths as soon as possible.
On January 5, 2009, Johnson filed a pro se petition for post-conviction relief alleging actual innocence and ineffective assistance of counsel. The petition included Daugherty’s affidavit. It also said that Johnson’s trial attorney had failed to properly investigate his alibi and call his grandmother, Mary Robinson, as an alibi witness. She said in an affidavit that she sent Johnson out for two errands on the night of April 14, 1996. He returned home by 10:15 p.m. and they ate dinner together. She said Johnson went to sleep at around 11:30 p.m. and didn’t leave until 8 a.m. the next day. She said she attended the trial and had been available to testify.
Johnson amended the petition on May 21, 2014, to include an affidavit from Slaughter that also said Johnson was not involved in the robbery or murder.
The trial court granted the state’s motion to dismiss the petition on September 21, 2017, ruling that Johnson’s ineffective assistance claim was untimely and that the affidavits were insufficient to prove actual innocence. Johnson appealed. On July 10, 2020, the Appellate Court of Illinois reinstated part of Johnson’s claim, ruling that the trial court had been too hasty in dismissing Johnson’s assertion of actual innocence. It ordered an evidentiary hearing.
On November 16, 2023, Johnson, now represented by Lauren Myerscough-Mueller and Megan Richardson with the Exoneration Project, filed a supplement to his amended petition that asserted additional new evidence of his innocence, including:
A 2023 affidavit from Slaughter, which said the fourth man in the home invasion and the person who shot Binion was not Johnson but Tramaine Taylor. “I didn’t name Tramaine because I didn’t want to be a snitch,” Slaughter said. “I never said it was Robert because he wasn’t there.”
An affidavit from Eddie Maholmes, who was close friends with Taylor and Gilbert. Maholmes said Taylor asked him to take part in the robbery and later confessed his role. He also said that Gilbert told him as far back as 1999 that Johnson was innocent. “He told me that the police forced him to lie and that the agreement with the state was that Willie would testify that Robert had shot Jay and in exchange, they would all get 15 years and not be convicted of murder,” Maholmes said.
Johnny Govan, another friend of Taylor’s, said that Taylor told him a few days after the robbery that he shot Binion. He said Johnson and Taylor looked alike, with similar complexion and hair style, and that Gilbert and the others came up with a plan to pin the murder on Johnson because they thought a witness had identified Johnson. “I wasn’t willing to come forward at the time because [Taylor] was my close friend and was also someone you didn’t mess with.” (Taylor died in 2018)
Valerie Allen, Johnson’s half-sister, dated Taylor between 2004 and 2006. She said Taylor confessed his involvement and told her that Johnson was innocent. She said she didn’t come forward because she didn’t know who to tell and didn’t want to be called a snitch. “To me, Tramaine wasn’t the reason Robert was locked up,” she said. “I always blamed the guys who lied on Robert.”
Evelyn Binion said in an affidavit that she told the police that it was Taylor not Johnson who shot her brother. She said this was based on information she had gathered in the neighborhood. She also said she saw Taylor’s then-girlfriend wearing a gold chain and medallion that had belonged to her brother. She said that she believed the police confused Taylor and Johnson because of their physical similarities. Binion was not asked about Taylor during the trial, and Johnson’s appellate attorneys said they did not receive any police records memorializing statements Binion might have made to investigators.
By the time of Johnson’s motion, there was an extensive record of claims by defendants in Chicago that O’Brien and Moser had used threats and violence to coerce false confessions and false statements during interrogations. “The evidence of the detectives’ systemic misconduct is material as it is relevant and probative of Mr. Johnson’s innocence,” the motion said. “Indeed, this evidence corroborates Slaughter’s and Gilbert’s allegations of physical and mental coercion and provides important context for the false statements implicating Mr. Johnson.”
In August 2024, Johnson’s attorneys presented their case at an evidentiary hearing.
Slaughter testified that officers choked and kicked him after he insisted that Johnson wasn’t involved. “I got smacked in my face, I got punched in my head, I got kneed in my stomach,” he said. “I got yanked around.”
Allen testified about her reluctance to name Taylor until after he died. “You don’t tell nothing like that unless you want to die, too,” she testified, according to WBEZ.
On February 19, 2025, Judge Joanne Rosado vacated Johnson’s conviction. Johnson was released from prison the next day. On April 1, 2025, the state dismissed the charges.
“The court has finally recognized I’m innocent,” Johnson said. “I’ve been saying that for 28 years and 10 months,” Johnson said. “It felt like a building was being removed from my shoulders, felt like that wait is finally over with.”
“They knew they went after the wrong guy, and yet, they went after a 16-year-old who was not doing anything wrong,” Myerscough-Mueller said. “He was home with his grandma. He was helping grandma, like he always was.”
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 04-26-2025
Last Update Date: 04-26-2025
