Adekunte M. Adaranijo, a 53 year old African American male, was shot multiple times in the pre-dawn hours of April 26, 2017, in Maywood, Illinois.
Police responding to reports of gunfire around 1:30 a.m. found him unresponsive in a vehicle near 14th Avenue and Oak Street. He was taken to Loyola University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 2:04 a.m.; the medical examiner ruled the case a homicide. Authorities identified him as a resident of Des Plaines.
In the hours and days after the killing, investigators said he had been driving for Lyft and was lured to the area for a robbery, a setup that ended with gunfire in a quiet residential block.
Police publicly sought tips from the community to help break the case as they traced his final movements and examined the crime scene.
By late November 2017, Maywood police announced arrests: Denarvis Mendenhall and Trevon Thomas, both 19, along with a 16 year old boy, all from Maywood, were each charged with first-degree murder.
According to officials, Thomas and the juvenile were taken into custody on November 15, and Mendenhall was arrested the following week. A judge ordered all three held without bond, and initial court dates were set after the charges were filed.
Subsequent developments have kept at least one of the accused in the public record. In May 2025, prosecutors alleged that Mendenhall, still in custody awaiting trial in the 2017 case, conspired to bribe a correctional officer to smuggle contraband into the Cook County Jail, resulting in new felony charges unrelated to the original homicide. Those allegations underscored that the underlying murder case remained pending in the courts at that time.
Community memorial pages continue to mark the date of the killing and the location in Maywood, reflecting the gravity of the loss and the violence that ended a life at 53.
