Man apologizes for shooting Hanover Park payday loan clerk

After being shot in the forehead at point-blank range by a robber at USA Pay Day Loans in Hanover Park last October, clerk Jaime Brock lay bleeding and motionless on the floor until she heard the gunman leave.

“I started screaming at myself, ‘Get up! Get up!’” the 35-year-old mother of three from Hoffman Estates remembers thinking.

She managed to get up and call 911, possibly saving her own life in the process, and then texted the employees at the neighboring Jimmy John’s restaurant and called home to tell her family she’d been shot. She remained conscious long enough to tell police and paramedics she knew the gunman, a regular customer named Admise Wilson.

Wilson, 34, of Hanover Park, was later arrested and charged with several crimes, including attempted first-degree murder.

Brock has made a miraculous recovery but still has bullet fragments in her brain and must regularly see a neurosurgeon. She has not yet been able to return to work.

“Everything that happened that day was pretty much by the grace of God,” she said Monday. “I’m blessed to be alive.”

Brock stood in court Monday to witness Cook County circuit court Judge Thomas Fecarotta sentence Wilson to 25 years in jail under a plea agreement that Brock approved.

While holding her husband’s hand, Brock addressed Wilson in court.

“I don’t know the reason why you did what you did,” said Brock, who still bears a large scar across her forehead. “I have a daughter who just had her eighth-grade graduation ... I have a (4-year-old) son with cerebral palsy. I was the breadwinner in my family. You don’t know at all what you could have caused me that day if I had died.”

Before being taken back to jail, Wilson tearfully apologized to Brock, her husband and her children.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. I’m sorry for the pain I caused to you and your family,” said Wilson, bowing his head repeatedly as he fought back tears. “I’m glad you’re up and moving around. ... (I’m going to) be gone for a long time.”

Wilson also asked the judge permission to tell his mother that he loved her.

On Oct. 5, 2010, Wilson came in twice to the payday loan store where Brock worked. The second time, he told her he’d be back in five minutes because he had to get something from his bank. He returned with a 22-caliber handgun and walked up to Brock — the only employee in the store at the time — and while she was typing his information into the computer, put the gun to her forehead and pulled the trigger, prosecutors said.

Wilson stole $1,000 from the cash register, prosecutors said, and before he left, went back to Wilson, threw a paper shredder on top of her, and put the gun to the back of her head. She didn’t move or speak, and remembers silently pleading with him not to shoot again. He left without firing another shot.

At the time of his arrest, Wilson was found with the gun and $242 in his possession, prosecutors said. He confessed to the shooting while in police custody, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Gerber said.

Wilson, who grew up in Mississippi, previously served four years in jail for two auto theft convictions there. He also has an 11-year-old son in Mississippi, a star student of whom he is very proud, his attorneys said.

Outside the courtroom, there were more tears as Brock hugged and thanked the Hanover Park police officers and paramedics who came to her aid that day and came for Monday’s court hearing.

Brock’s friend, Sherese Evans of Hanover Park, says it’s a miracle Brock was able to do all that she did after being shot in the head.

“It just wasn’t her time,” Evans said.

The plea deal allows Wilson to avoid attempted murder charges and instead plead guilty to two Class X felonies — aggravated battery with a firearm and armed robbery. He must serve at least 85 percent of his 25-year sentence, and then have three years of mandatory supervised probation.