Judge denies bail reduction in DuPage road rage homicide case
The $3 million bail set for the man accused in the April shooting death of a truck driver on the Reagan Tollway in Oak Brook will stand.
DuPage County Judge John Kinsella on Tuesday refused to reduce the bail for Anthony Tillmon, 35, of Lansing, citing the seriousness of the first-degree murder charge and potential life sentence.
Tillmon's attorney, Loren Blumenfeld, filed the motion to reduce Tillmon's bail to $500,000, calling the previously set amount "excessive in every way, shape and form."
Blumenfeld said he believes $3 million bail is too high for a case that may see Tillmon claim self-defense. He also said he does not believe Tillmon poses a threat to the community and he doesn't believe the victim's family is seeking any kind of violent retribution.
"This isn't some kind of ongoing feud that the public could be caught in the crossfire of," Blumenfeld told Kinsella.
Assistant State's Attorney Steve Knight, however, argued that multiple witnesses said they saw Tillmon, a tow-truck driver for Calumet City's Wes's Service, raise his right arm and open fire on Eduardo Munoz, 43, most recently of Northlake. Munoz was driving a semitrailer truck east on I-88 during the afternoon rush hour near York Road.
Tillmon fired multiple shots, Knight said, hitting Munoz three times.
Knight said witnesses also said both trucks were swerving into each other's lanes just before the shooting.
Their descriptions of the truck Tillmon was driving allowed police to review video from the tollway and compare it to the GPS device and I-PASS transponder in his vehicle.
After the shooting, Knight said, Tillmon drove to a Walmart in Lansing, where video shows him parking his truck in a remote location and his girlfriend picking him up in a Jeep. She later dropped him off at the tow truck company.
Once there, Tillmon asked one of his co-workers to drive him back to Walmart to pick up the tow truck. He then drove the truck back to the company, got in his Dodge Charger, drove back to his girlfriend's house and left again in her Jeep.
During Tillmon's original hearing in April, when prosecutors sought to have him held without bail, prosecutors said Tillmon's co-workers told authorities he was showing off a gun at work shortly before the shooting. He has no FOID card or concealed carry permit.
Prosecutors said Tillmon never has been convicted of a crime but has three previous gun-related arrests in Cook, Vermillion and McLean counties.
His next court date is Dec. 27.