Teen In A Clown Outfit Accused Of Murdering 78-year-old Man In ‘random Attack’ At Bus Stop

A 15-year-old Illinois boy has been charged pinch murder aft allegedly stabbing an aged man successful a “random attack” while wearing a clown costume.

John Wesley Allen, 78, of Jennings, Missouri, was waiting astatine a autobus extremity adjacent 76th and State streets successful East St. Louis astir 10 p.m. Monday erstwhile he was attacked and killed, according to Illinois State Police.

Prosecutors opportunity nan unidentified teen had “the intent to termination aliases do awesome bodily harm” to Allen, who was stabbed pinch a weapon aggregate times, causing his death, according to a tribunal filing by St. Clair County Assistant State’s Attorney Derek Smith, NBC News reports.

The teen was arrested Monday nighttime aft constabulary recovered him astatine a adjacent home, authorities said. He was charged Thursday pinch first-degree murder. Prosecutors are besides seeking to person nan teen tried arsenic an adult, a determination that will beryllium near to nan court.

Less than an hr earlier nan attack, doorbell camera footage obtained by KSDK showed a personification successful a comedian outfit pinch a partially covered look approaching a location and saying, “I person a gift for you.”

Neighbors told nan position they saw nan teen going doorway to door, looking into windows and carrying a weapon.

“He was twirling a knife, and it was a beautiful large knife…the ray gleamed disconnected of it," neighbour Corrine Spry said.

Allen’s heartbroken family remembered him arsenic a benignant and devoted man who was loved by those astir him. He was a begetter of three, brother, uncle and Navy seasoned who regularly took nan autobus to sojourn family members passim nan Metro East area.

“He’s conscionable a bully person. That’s nan logic I couldn’t perchance deliberation thing would hap to him,” Allen’s sister, Marie Stanford, told Fox 2 Now. “He ever informed america wherever he was going to beryllium truthful we could prime him up because we don’t for illustration him riding connected nan autobus precocious astatine night.”

Allen’s family said they support prosecutors’ efforts to effort nan teen arsenic an adult, saying nan nonaccomplishment has profoundly affected their loved ones.

“My mom, my uncle and them, they person to unrecorded this for nan remainder of their life. Their babe relative is gone,” Allen’s niece, Tenia Stanford, told nan station.