Carpentersville man turns self in for murder case

A Carpentersville man on the lam for nearly three months after he was named a suspect in an October homicide, turned himself in to police Tuesday night.

Errick L. Brown, 39, of the 100 block of Amarillo Drive, has been charged with two counts of murder. He is accused of shooting a 25-year-old Elgin man in the head.

Joseph Vonner, remembered as a caring person and loving father by friends, died Oct. 10.

Vonner had been found lying unresponsive in a front yard at 12:30 a.m. in the 100 block of Amarillo Drive in Carpentersville. Relatives said the father of five had been staying at the address for a short time before the shooting. Vonner was later pronounced dead at Sherman Hospital.

Police do not know what led to his murder; they said Vonner and Brown knew each other but were not roommates.

A warrant was issued for Brown's arrest on Oct. 13.

Police believed he was hiding out in Chicago with family members.

"Our investigators had been in constant contact with his relatives and I think he just got fed up with the police coming to the door," said Carpentersville Cmdr. Timothy Bosshart. "And he realized he had nowhere else to go."

At 5 p.m., Brown turned himself in to the Chicago Police Department's District 3 office on the city's South Side.

Carpentersville officers picked him up from Chicago and drove him back to Kane County. He was processed at 2:20 a.m. Wednesday.

Brown has a lengthy rap sheet, with 11 arrests and two convictions.

In 1994, he was convicted of unlawful possession of a controlled substance in Chicago, stemming from an incident in which police found him with 1.19 grams of crack cocaine in 13 small bags, according to Cook County records. He was sentenced to a year of conditional discharge in the case.

But in 1996, police picked him up again in Chicago, this time for manufacturing and delivering 5.6 grams of cocaine, records show.

He was sentenced to four years in a boot camp.

Another judge preset Brown's bond at $2 million in the murder case, an amount Kane County Judge Bruce Lester decided would stand Wednesday during a bond hearing.

That means Brown needs $200,000 to secure his release while the case is pending.

Brown, who is unemployed, said he would not be able to pay that bond.

His next court date is Jan. 14 at the Kane County Judicial Center.

If found guilty, Brown could spend the rest of his life in prison, or face the death penalty.