Killing of a Cahokia Heights man at his home last week was ‘an execution,’ prosecutor argues
A St. Clair County prosecutor on Monday described the fatal shooting of a Cahokia Heights man at his home last week as an execution, while a public defender said the woman they’ve charged in the crime loved him and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Vermonica L. Turley, 56, was charged with first-degree murder in the July 10 shooting death of Stephan Monigan, 68, of Cahokia Heights. Turley has lived in Belleville for the last six months and previously lived in Cahokia Heights.
First Assistant State’s Attorney Dan Lewis argued in a detention hearing Monday that Turley should be held in the St. Clair County Jail before her trial because she poses a threat to the safety of the community.
“This was an execution committed by someone with a history of domestic battery,” Lewis told St. Clair County Associate Judge Sara Rice.
In response, Assistant Public Defender Satchel Conroy emphasized that the domestic battery conviction was from 28 years ago.
“With this criminal history, this doesn’t add up,” Conroy said. “... I don’t see the threat to society.”
Rice said the circumstantial evidence presented at Monday’s hearing is “certainly enough to give this court concern” and ordered that Turley be detained.
Police were dispatched to Monigan’s home at 2003 Maple Tree Lane in Cahokia Heights around 7:30 a.m. July 10. They found Monigan lying in the kitchen with gunshot wounds to his head and chest. Turley was giving him CPR.
Lewis said authorities believe Monigan had been dead for hours because an anonymous tipster and other witnesses told police they heard the sound of a gunshot around 3-4 a.m. and rigor mortis, the stiffening of the joints and muscles after death, had set in.
Monigan’s home surveillance video captured Turley arriving at Monigan’s home at 3:45 a.m., leaving at 3:56 a.m. heading toward Monigan’s silver Dodge Ram pickup truck and coming back at 7:19 a.m. with the truck, according to Lewis.
Conroy said that footage only shows Turley coming back to “return a car to someone she loves.” Turley is the one who called 911, and she was trying to resuscitate Monigan when first-responders arrived, Conroy added.
Police found a revolver with spent casings on the edge of the road just over a mile from the scene and they determined it was used in the fatal shooting by comparing the casings to the shells in Monigan’s body. Lewis said surveillance video from a local business showed the silver Dodge Ram pickup truck 100 yards from where the weapon was found at 4 a.m.
Police interviewed witnesses who testified that Turley had a revolver and that she was behaving erratically and waving it around the day before the fatal shooting.
Conroy generally dismissed the witnesses in the case as “a bunch of crackheads” and people who are “probably on drugs now.”
“That’s all the state has,” Conroy said.
