Suspect in Illinois murder captured at Sikeston home

Standard Democrat

SIKESTON, Mo. -- A murder suspect from Illinois was caught early Saturday morning in Sikeston by the Sikeston Department of Public Safety and other law enforcement agencies, after hours of search and surveillance.

Carl Wayne Wilson, 45, of East St. Louis, Ill., was charged Tuesday with the first-degree murder of Marilyn Patterson, 17, of East St. Louis. According to reports, Patterson was found last Sunday in a car near Centreville, Ill., with a gunshot wound to the head.

According to a report published Thursday in the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, police did not say why they believe Wilson is the man who pulled the trigger.

According to Sikeston police chief Drew Juden, at 11:30 a.m. Friday the Missouri State Highway Patrol received information that Wilson was expected to arrive at the bus station in Sikeston.

Juden said that as units were setting up surveillance, Wilson and his traveling companion arrived in a cab from Fort Worth, Texas, and then fled to pay avoid paying the cabdriver his fare of $750. The driver called 911.

Door-to-door search

Law enforcement officers from the highway patrol, Scott County Sheriff, New Madrid County Sheriff and Sikeston police began a door-to-door search.

At about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, police received information that Wilson and his companion were hiding at a home in Sikeston. Police surrounded the house; once the area was secure, police ordered the occupants out.

Juden said the woman who was traveling with Wilson tried to hide among the victims who left the residence.

Wilson tried to elude officers by cutting a window screen and climbing onto the roof. He was taken into custody without incident as he jumped from the roof of the house.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports said that Wilson's criminal history includes armed robbery. In 1975, he was charged and later convicted in the beating and torture death 62-year-old George Horvat of East St. Louis.

Belleville police chief Terry Delaney, who was an Illinois State Police officer at the time, investigated the case. Delaney said Horvat's wife, Laura, then 60, and their 35-year-old mentally retarded son were severely beaten with bars and gun butts, doused with cooking oil and painted with gold spray paint.

"Carl Wilson was sentenced under the old law," Delaney was quoted as saying. "There was no death penalty at that time. He received 150 years."

Several years after Wilson was sentenced, many of the old cases were brought out to be sentenced under the newer laws, but Wilson's was not.

"Wilson was released in August 2001 and placed under mandatory supervised release until 2065. He had 63 years on parole," Delaney said. "He was one of the 10 most dangerous inmates in the Department of Corrections. He is very aggressive."