The 11 October shooting in Herndon’s charge preceded Wilson’s 14 October death
Federal court documents show that Willie James Herndon has been charged in a second shooting incident involving a vehicle on 11 October. The earlier incident, like Wilson’s killing, involved firing into cars on the highway. The 11 October incident preceded Alyssa Wilson’s death on 14 October; Wilson, 17, was shot and killed while driving on Interstate 170 in Overland, Missouri. Herndon, 43, of Texas, is the suspected shooter in Wilson’s killing, and he had no known relationship to the teen.
Wilson was driving to a Halloween party at the St Louis Zoo, called Boo at the Zoo, when a suspect fired a single shot into the back of her Buick Encore. Prosecutors said the shot struck Wilson in the back, incapacitated her and sent her into a concrete highway median. She was pronounced dead at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.
“Alyssa was 17, excited about her life, excited about her future,” her father Robert Hickman said, as state charges were announced. “She had 60 days until she turned 18, and we were getting ready to take our first family vacation together to go to Disney for her to see her favorite person in the world, Princess Tiana, and unfortunately, she’s not going to get to do that any more. This was a senseless act.”
Federal court documents show that Herndon has been charged in the second shooting incident. On 11 October, St Louis metropolitan police received a report that a vehicle had been shot just after exiting Interstate 55 in Missouri. Surveillance footage captured a white SUV fleeing the scene, and the vehicle matched the appearance of Herndon’s Buick Enclave. A shell casing was also recovered from the scene.
Prosecutors said they were conducting ballistics tests to determine whether the casing was fired from the same weapon that killed Wilson. In a federal criminal complaint, prosecutors said they tracked what appeared to be Herndon’s Buick Enclave from the 11 October shooting to the scene of Wilson’s death on 14 October, then to a Days Inn in Caseyville, Illinois, on 16 October.
At the Days Inn, prosecutors approached Herndon’s wife, Taiya Herndon, 45, while speaking with her. Herndon emerged from the hotel room and began to flee, according to prosecutors. As he was arrested, he was “screaming words about a shooting,” prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said they found an ABC-15 rifle “in plain view” in the Days Inn room. The room also contained ammunition that matched the kind used in Wilson’s shooting, a receipt from a gas station near the scene of Wilson’s death on Interstate 170, two license plates and handwritten notes describing police vehicles Herndon believed were tracking him.
Federal prosecutors in Illinois charged Herndon with being a felon in possession of a firearm. Missouri prosecutors separately charged him with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in St Louis county, Missouri. His federal public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Federal court documents show that Herndon has been charged in the second shooting incident involving a vehicle on 11 October. That shooting preceded Wilson’s death on 14 October. The connection rests on the described vehicle evidence, ammunition that matched the type used in Wilson’s shooting, and ballistics tests that prosecutors said were pending.