(The following story by Natasha Korecki appeared on the Chicago Sun-Times website on October 6.)
CHICAGO — Two men were charged today with shooting at a moving Metra train, allegedly targeting an engineer.
Federal officials had previously indicted Telly S. Virgin in the case but this morning unsealed charges against Theodore Howard as well. Howard was arrested last night.
The men’s intended target was not revealed in court documents. But according to columns by Mary Mitchell in the Chicago Sun-Times, Howard had allegedly abused and stalked his ex-wife, Andrea Brown, a Metra engineer. Brown had taken out protection orders against Howard.
In court Monday, prosecutors alleged that Howard hired Virgin to kill his ex-wife.
Someone shot at a Metra train Brown was supposed to be operating on June 6, 2007. But Brown had switched shifts that day because she wanted to watch her son’s baseball game.
“I had no idea what was going to happen,” the Metra engineer who was operating the train that day told Mitchell. “I noticed a gentleman standing on the platform real close to the edge. What alerted me was he had on a winter jacket and it was 72 degrees out. Then his hand went in his pocket and that’s when I saw a silver-plated gun. He started shooting at point-blank range.”
Howard appeared in federal court Monday.
Howard and Virgin are charged in a six-count indictment with shooting at a Metra train, a federal crime, and separate weapons charges.