Robert Hall Jr., a 31-year-old Black man from Euclid, Ohio, was known by friends as “Berto” and remembered for being smart and personable with a beautiful smile. His life was cut short in the early morning hours of September 8, 2022.
Around 5:45 a.m. that day, Cleveland police responded to a call about a car crash in the city’s Clark Fulton neighborhood. At the intersection of West 41st Street and Clark Avenue, they found a vehicle that had struck a pole.
Inside was Robert, who was driving. First responders discovered he had been shot twice in the back. He was transported to MetroHealth hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Witnesses told investigators they saw two men flee from the car after it crashed.
Cleveland police began a homicide investigation and eventually identified a suspect, 30-year-old Bertram Hicks of Cleveland. Authorities stated that Hicks had been a passenger in the car Robert was driving at the time of the shooting. A warrant was issued for Hicks’s arrest on a charge of aggravated murder, but he had already fled the area.
A months-long manhunt followed, with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Marshals Service searching for Hicks. The search ended nearly 400 miles away in May 2023, when the U.S. Marshals' Eastern Wisconsin Fugitive Task Force arrested Hicks in Milwaukee.
Robert’s parents, Jeanette and Robert Hall Sr., expressed relief that an arrest had been made but were still left with immense pain and unanswered questions. “We still don’t have any answers,” his father said. “That’s what hurts the most.” His mother added that she learned of the arrest from a news report rather than from detectives. As of May 2023, the case against Bertram Hicks was proceeding through the legal system.
