Black/African American male, age 23. Anthony Allan Gant Jr. grew up in Springfield, Illinois, a 2005 Southeast High School graduate who was five days shy of his 24th birthday when his life ended on Tuesday, August 9, 2011. He was pronounced dead at St. John's Hospital that evening, the loss formally noted in his hometown obituary, which fixed his age at 23 and his date of death as August 9.
Two days earlier, in the predawn quiet of a Sunday around 5 a.m., the 1900 block of South Wirt Avenue stirred with gunfire. Anthony Allan Gant Jr., age 23, was sitting on the porch of his home when a figure stepped out from between two houses across the street and opened fire, nine or more shots cracking the stillness. Struck in the head, he was rushed to the hospital; on Tuesday, he died from his wounds at 6:27 p.m.
Friends and family marked the young man's passing with notices and memorial pages, recording his full name, his age, his Springfield roots, and the date the violence claimed him. Community posts and memorial sites kept the porch scene vivid long after the police tape came down, noting that Anthony Allan Gant Jr., age 23, had simply been sitting outside when the shots came.
Investigators searched for leads, but the case cooled. Over the years, cold-case advocates continued to repeat the same stark facts: Anthony Allan Gant Jr., age 23, died after being shot on his porch; no one has been charged. Databases of unsolved homicides in Illinois list his 2011 killing among Springfield's open cases, a reminder that the shooter who stepped from the shadows has never been named in court. As of the most recent public references, there have been no arrests, and authorities have not publicly identified a suspect.
