Teron M. Scott Jr., 20, was discovered just before dawn on June 20, 2025, in the back driver’s seat of a car that had slammed into a tree along the 300 block of South MacArthur Highway, on the west side of Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Peoria. He had a single gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene around 4 a.m.; a second occupant, a 19-year-old man, arrived at a hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the hand. He was Black / African American. Police converged on the crash site after reports around 2:30–2:45 a.m., and an early autopsy confirmed that the shot to the head killed Teron M. Scott Jr., 20, a male, instantly.
Detectives began tracing the path of the victim’s car and the shooters, collecting surveillance footage and hits from license-plate readers that showed another vehicle racing to catch up, swinging into the oncoming lane to pull alongside before gunfire erupted. By the next night, investigators had questioned and arrested Christopher P. Adams Jr., 20, on a charge of first-degree murder connected to the killing of Teron M. Scott Jr., 20, male; a judge later granted the state’s request to detain him pending trial. According to prosecutors, Adams admitted to being the driver of the pursuing vehicle captured on video.
Within days, the case widened. On June 24, police arrested a second suspect, 18-year-old Kamereon Bell, on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Teron M. Scott Jr., 20, male; he, too, was booked into the Peoria County Jail. That same day, prosecutors described surveillance that charted the chase and noted that officers had identified the suspect vehicle through camera networks. Evidence recovered at the scene would later show three distinct sets of shell casings, an ominous clue that multiple firearms had been used as the cars ran side-by-side.
A third arrest followed on July 7, when Peoria police took a 17-year-old into custody on a first-degree murder charge tied to the same shooting. In October, a Peoria County jury found that juvenile—Lamar Cagle—guilty of first-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm for his role in the chase and shooting that killed Teron M. Scott Jr., 20, male. At trial, jurors saw footage from a dash-camera inside the suspect vehicle and heard Cagle on the recording discussing being one of the shooters; prosecutors also emphasized the multiple sets of shell casings recovered at the scene. Sentencing for Cagle was set for November 19, while the cases against Christopher Adams and Kamereon Bell remained pending.
