Kenney man who killed one relative, wounded another found dead of apparent self-inflicted shot
Sep. 5—KENNEY — The search for a Kenney man who fatally shot his father-in-law and wounded his own son ended late Monday night when his body was located in rural Macon County.
DeWitt County Sheriff Mike Walker confirmed that Jose DeJesus Gomez Munoz, 45, who went by Jesus Munoz, was found deceased in his car about 9 p.m., the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities had been searching for him since Sunday afternoon in connection with the murder of John Wesley Anderson, 78, of Kenney and the shooting of Kigan Antonio Munoz, 21, of Clinton.
Walker said the shootings happened Sunday afternoon in a fifth-wheel camper occupied by Mr. Anderson and his wife that they park on the property of their home on Kenney Road, just south of the small community in southwest DeWitt County.
Walker said for many years, the Andersons had lived in Texas most of the year but returned home to rural Kenney for three months and stayed in their RV on their homestead. Their daughter, who was married to Mr. Munoz, lived in the family house with her husband.
Walker said about 3:15 p.m. Sunday, the Andersons and their daughter and grandson were all in the fifth-wheel camper when Mr. Munoz came there.
Walker said he has not yet seen interviews that Illinois State Police investigators conducted with surviving family members to know exactly what occurred in the RV, but he said Mr. Anderson was calling the DeWitt County 911 dispatcher for help when he was apparently fatally shot, because the dispatcher heard the shots.
Kigan Munoz, the sheriff said, was also shot in the leg three times but was able to flee the trailer and get in his car. He drove toward Kenney and flagged down a deputy who was headed for the property.
He was initially taken to Warner Hospital in Clinton and later transferred to Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, where he was reported in stable condition.
Meanwhile, DeWitt County deputies got the others who were in the RV to safety, then surrounded the nearby house, thinking Mr. Munoz was in it. They also had a report that he may have been in a nearby cornfield.
He had made threats to harm law-enforcement officers, so Walker said his deputies kept their distance until help could arrive from a state police SWAT unit.
When police confirmed about 8:30 p.m. Sunday that the family's Honda Accord was not on the property, they concluded that he had fled the scene and commenced a search. Several area police agencies from multiple jurisdictions helped the DeWitt County sheriff's deputies, Walker said.
The search was still underway Monday night when a woman pulled into an access drive for a wind turbine in northern Macon County, just south of the county line between DeWitt and Macon counties, saw a white car, then pulled out and called police.
That's when deputies from DeWitt County, who were closer to the call than Macon deputies, approached the car and found the deceased Mr. Munoz.
Walker, who knew Mr. Anderson for many years and described him as a "great man," said he didn't know much of the family dynamics other than Mr. Anderson and Mr. Munoz did not get along.
