Marquise J. Smith was a 26-year-old Black man from Kankakee, Illinois, whose life was cut short by gunfire in the fall of 2020.
On the evening of Sunday, September 13, 2020, Smith was shot in the 300-block of South Wildwood Avenue in Kankakee. He was one of two people wounded in separate shootings that occurred in the city that day. Smith was rushed to Loyola University Medical Center, where he later died from his injuries.
The Kankakee Police Department investigated the shooting as a homicide. Authorities announced that they had identified a suspect, 21-year-old DeJour Turner-Owens, as the gunman. After the State’s Attorney reviewed the evidence, police arrested Turner-Owens on Tuesday, September 15, 2020.
Turner-Owens was charged with first-degree murder for the shooting death of Marquise Smith.
He was brought before a Kankakee Circuit Court judge, who set his bond at $5 million. The case against Turner-Owens proceeded through the court system and eventually went to trial.
At the conclusion of the trial, Dejour Turner-Owens was found not guilty of the murder. Following the acquittal, no one has been held legally responsible for the death of Marquise Smith. His homicide remains unsolved.
