Good Guy with a Gun #76: Peoria, IL
Original incident: January 15, 2024. Even six-on-two odds can be evened out when a man has a firearm and knows how to use it.
These posts are based on our Good Guy with a Gun calendar. If you bought or received a calendar, contact me for a complementary subscription. Today’s post is significantly updated from the calendar version.
There’s some overhead to this story, starting with getting to know the criminals and the setup. There are six of them:
The Williams brothers, Johnathan, 21, and Keshawn, 18.
Their cousin, Sontarrius Williams, 27.
Jalyn Branscum, 18.
Tanarius Kingcade, 19.
Marcus Whitehead, 18.
Ages are stated as they were at the time of the incident, and I’ll use first names to avoid confusion about all the Williamses.
Johnathan and Sontarrius met up at a funeral, and Sontarrius wanted to “make some money.” Johnathan, an enterprising soul, had set up a fake Facebook profile for “Mark A. Booda” some years prior to the incident, and they decided to post an ad for a Dodge Charger in Facebook Marketplace.
The car was real — Johnathan had owned it once — but it was no longer in his possession, and they had no intention of selling anything.
They got a lot of interest in the car, but a particular young couple seemed most interested. I’ll call them by their initials, “IS” and “AB,” for their privacy.
Johnathan handled the Facebook communications, and he invited IS and AB to meet up to make the purchase.1
A page from Peoria’s extensive response to a FOIA request about the case.
They traveled into Peoria to meet the “sellers,” and Sontarrius met them at about 5 PM. He walked them through an alley to a garage where they could inspect the Charger.
But of course there was no Charger — just an SUV with armed men in it. Keshawn, Jalyn, and Marcus were among them. They got out and pointed their guns at IS and AB, demanding money. They took AB’s phone from her pocket.
At which point, IS opened fire with his legally carried handgun.
Marcus Whitehead returned fire, and IS shot him multiple times in the chest. The others jumped into a Jeep and fled.
Marcus Whitehead died at the scene.
Thankfully, IS and AB weren’t hurt. Since IS’s handgun was legally carried, he wasn’t charged in Whitehead’s death. And I don’t like to pry, but in my research I think I stumbled across the fact that they’ve gotten married and had a child. We hope they live happily ever after.
There are a number of resources discussing the statuses of the five surviving criminals for armed robbery. Though the incident was two years ago, some of the cases are just wrapping up.
Sontarrius Williams, Jalyn Branscumb, and Keshawn Williams
Four of the five entered guilty pleas. Johnathan Williams appears not to have done so; the last information I can find is that he was having a review hearing in December 2025, but I can’t find the results of it.
Jalyn Branscumb — sentenced to 22 years.
Tanarius Kingcade — awaiting sentencing for a maximum of 21 years.
Keshawn Williams — awaiting sentencing for up to 30 years.
Sontarrius Williams — awaiting sentencing for a maximum of 28 years.
Johnathan Williams — pending.
Kingcade’s sentencing hearing was supposed to be on January 9 of this year. Keshawn and Sontarrius Williams are both supposed to have sentencing hearings on February 4.
Sources
I won’t go through everything possible in this section. I will note, however, that there are several inaccuracies in the reporting, and if you dig into these articles, you’re going to see things that don’t line up with the story I told above.
We can see from court documents that IS is a man and AB is a woman, but some of the reporting says that the Gang of Six tried to rob “two men.”
One of the articles said, “gunshots broke out, claiming the life of Marcus Whitehead of Bloomington, 18, one of the purchasers.” I promise you, Whitehead was one of the criminals.
One news report says “a fight broke out.”
This isn’t a factual error, but a peeve of mine: This wasn’t a “robbery gone wrong.” It was an armed robbery that went about as right as it can go from the victims’ perspective.
Given all of the discrepancies, I did a lot of extra legwork to clarify what happened, and I’m confident in my version of the story.
One reason is that Peoria responded to a FOIA request of mine with a redacted-but-detailed packet that gives all of the details one might want. If I knew how to upload a PDF to a Substack, I’d give you the whole thing.
Rather than try to sort things out like I normally do, I’m going to give a pile of links here. Sorry, it just is what it is in this case.
State’s Attorney Facebook post
Peoria Journal-Star: Man killed in Peoria robbery gone wrong, police say
WCBU: Bloomington man killed after a shooting Monday evening in Peoria
WGLT: Bloomington man killed in Monday shooting in Peoria
CIproud.com: Man shot during attempted heist at a Facebook Marketplace transaction
WMBD 1470/100.3 gave this a lot of coverage on the Dana Show.
And then there’s all of the “so-and-so pled guilty” articles. Note that if it covered Keshawn, it probably covered Jalyn Branscumb as well, since he pleaded guilty about eight months earlier.
Journal-Star, regarding Kingcade and Sontarrius Williams
WMBD, regarding Keshawn Williams and Kingcade
25News Now, regarding Keshawn Williams
WCBU, regarding Kingcade
The information so far has been taken from Johnathan’s statement to the police, which was given to get him some consideration from the State Attorney’s Office. Caveat lector. The image shows the relevant section.
It's nice to see some good coverage of this one. I always hated it when my students would go off to Chattanooga to some parking lot at night to buy something from an online marketplace; one did get robbed but thankfully no injuries.