Just before 1 a.m. on April 27, 2018, a flurry of 911 calls sent officers to the 100 block of Algonquin Street in Park Forest, where they found two people shot.
One of them, Sherrod A. James—a 23-year-old Black male,was rushed to Franciscan Health in Chicago Heights and pronounced dead at 1:24 a.m.
Police noted that the 23-year-old Black male lived on the very block where the shooting occurred, while the second victim was hospitalized in critical condition as detectives
began their canvass in the quiet, residential stretch.
Initial updates from the scene were spare: just after 12:50 a.m., two victims, a 23-year-old male, was declared dead at the hospital, and no immediate arrests.
Park Forest police said they did not believe there was a continued threat to the public, even as squad lights and evidence markers held the street in a long, early-morning pause.
Over the following months, investigators—working with the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force—identified suspects.
In June 2018, Markees Sharkey, an 18-year-old male from Chicago, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the killing of 23-year-old Sherrod A. James.
After additional evidence was developed, on October 1, 2019, police arrested Robert Sanner, a 20-year-old male from Chicago Heights, and charged him with first-degree murder in the same case.
Officials emphasized the presumption of innocence as the charges moved into the courts, marking two arrests tied to the death of 23-year-old Sherrod A. James.
What endures in the public record is a stark sequence: a predawn burst of violence on a block where 23 year old Sherrod A. James was cut down in a hail of bullets; a hospital pronouncement that set the date and time of loss; and, after months and then more than a year of follow-up, the arrests of an 18-year-old male and a 20-year-old male on first-degree murder charges.
No further information is available at this time.
