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Crime & Safety

Lengthy Indictment for Three Accused in Buell Court Home Invasion

Pretrial hearings continue while a possible fourth suspect remains at large.

Three men have been indicted on a combined 223 counts related to attempted murder, home invasion and kidnapping.

Oak Lawn police say Timmie Walton, 28, of Midlothian, and Keon Thigpen, 23, and Kennedy Clark, 51, both of Chicago, forced two women inside a home 10100 block of South Buell Court on Aug. 3, shortly after midnight.

Once inside, a male relative reportedly fired a shotgun in the men's direction, but missed. Sometime before they fled, one of the women was shot in the arm.

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It was then, according to police, the men that ended near 61st Place and Harlem Avenue in Summit.

Walton is the only man charged with attempted murder, and he’s charged with three counts of it. In total the grand jury bill of indictment brings 101 counts—mostly related to kidnapping but including aggravated unlawful use of a vehicle and felony possession of a weapon—against him. Thigpen and Clark, respectively, face 59 and 63 counts of similar nature.

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All three men have been convicted of drug-related crimes and served time in the Illinois Department of Corrections at some point in their lives. Court records show that, in 1996, Clark was sentenced to seven years for unlawful use of a firearm and possession of a firearm. Thigpen, whose rap sheet is longest, has another case pending in Chicago for the manufacture/delivery of heroin.

No charges have been filed against a fourth man suspected to have aided Walton, Thigpen and Clark on Aug. 3. Oak Lawn Police Division Chief Mike Kaufmann said physical evidence that could identify another suspect has been sent to the Illinois Crime Lab.

“I hope that everything is properly adduced and exonerated,” Lawrence Levin, an attorney for Walton, said, but he declined to comment any further. So did Joseph Barbaro, an attorney for Clark, and the Cook County Public Defender’s Office, which is representing Thigpen.

Pretrial hearings continue March 29 at the Fifth Municipal District Courthouse in Bridgeview before Judge Colleen Ann Hyland. All three men have been denied bail.

Updated at 1:33 p.m. with information from Division Chief Kaufmann

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