Dearis J. Evans, a 24-year-old Black man from the Joliet, Illinois, area, was a father of two young daughters, ages one and six at the time of his death. His family remembered him as a "good person" with a "good heart" and a "beautiful smile." His grandmother, Eloise Mitchell, said they would pray for the people responsible for his death, while his cousin, Tamikio Adams, said, "we are going to miss him." Evans had a past that included a 2015 conviction for dealing cocaine, for which he had served a prison sentence. At the time of his killing, he was awaiting trial on new charges but had hired a private attorney to handle his legal matters.
In the early morning hours of Thursday, October 17, 2019, tragedy struck. At approximately 12:20 a.m., Joliet Police officers responded to a call of shots fired in the 800 block of Cora Street. In an alley, they discovered Evans and a 19-year-old Joliet man. Both had been inside a vehicle when an unknown shooter opened fire.
The 19-year-old was not injured, but Evans had sustained multiple gunshot wounds. Paramedics rushed him to AMITA Health Saint Joseph Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at about 1:20 a.m. An autopsy later confirmed he died from his injuries. One neighbor on the normally "quiet neighborhood" street later recalled hearing loud noises around midnight that she mistook for fireworks.
The Joliet Police Department immediately began an investigation, with detectives canvassing the neighborhood and knocking on doors. They asked residents and businesses in the area—from east of Nicholson Street to Broadway Street and north of Ruby Street to Moran Street—to check their surveillance cameras for any relevant footage between 11 p.m. the night before and 1 a.m. that morning. The investigation was in its early stages, and police were actively looking into what occurred.
As the investigation progressed, a person of interest emerged. Court documents filed in January 2020 revealed that Joliet Police were investigating Terrell Fanniel, a 30-year-old man with a criminal record, in connection with Evans' murder. The connection was made after a police raid on Fanniel's Plainfield residence on November 19, 2019. During the search, investigators found evidence related to the Evans homicide. Specifically, 9mm shell casings recovered from the Cora Street crime scene were matched through the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network to a previous drive-by shooting incident allegedly involving Fanniel. While a handgun was not found at Fanniel's home, a 9mm magazine was seized. A subsequent raid at a related address in Romeoville uncovered a 9mm handgun that fit the magazine.
Despite the evidence linking him to the scene, Fanniel was never charged with the murder of Dearis Evans, though he faced other pending weapon and drug-related cases in Will County. The investigation into Evans' homicide took an unexpected turn years later. In July 2022, Terrell Fanniel himself became a homicide victim. He was shot and killed outside Forza Table and Tap, a restaurant in the nearby city of Crest Hill.
With the death of the primary suspect, the case of who killed Dearis Evans is considered resolved, though it did not end with a conviction in a court of law. The Joliet Police Department and Crime Stoppers of Will County had initially asked for the public's help, seeking any information that could lead to an arrest. The case leaves behind a grieving family and unanswered questions about the cycle of violence that claimed two lives nearly three years apart.
