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Crime & Safety

Trio Indicted After River Forest Murder

Grand jury hands down charges against former cop, his son and an accomplice.

Editor's note: Prosecutors say Devin Bickham Sr. called 911 moments after his girlfriend was shot in an attempt to distance himself from the crime. A recording and transcript of that 911 call accompanies this story.

Three men were indicted Thursday on first-degree murder charges for the July shooting death of Chervon Monique Alexander in a River Forest parking lot.

Formal charges will be read during an arraignment Aug. 10 against Chicago residents Devin Bickham Sr., 39, and his son Devin Arvdell Bickham, 20 and Blue Island resident Cardell Taylor, 35, said River Forest Det. Sgt. Marty Grill. The hearing will be at Maybrook Court.

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The three, who were July 14, remain held without bond in the Cook County Jail, Grill said.

Earlier: 

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Authorities accused Bickham Sr., a former North Chicago police officer, of offering Taylor $400 if he would kill Alexander. During a last month, Cook County State's Attorney Maureen O'Brien told the court the older Bickham had been planning the crime for some time as a way of getting out his relationship with her.

According to the Tribune, O’Brien told the court that the older Bickham and Alexander drove to a parking lot at the northeast corner of Division Street and Bonnie Brae Place, a spot they'd been to before. His alleged accomplices were in another car a block away. After getting a text message from the older Bickham, Taylor came to the car and shot Alexander several times.

After the shooting, which took place around 10:20 p.m. in a darkened parking lot shared by River Forest and Dominican University's Priory Campus, the older Bickham called police and pretended to be a witness to the shooting, O'Brien said. 

The younger Bickham and Taylor were apprehended by Forest Park police roughly a mile from the crime scene. Alexander died around 11 p.m. at Loyola University Medical Center.

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