Kenosha bar shooting; men charged after 2 killed, 2 wounded
KENOSHA, Wis. - Two men – one from Illinois, the other from Georgia – have been charged for a Kenosha bar shooting that left two people dead and two others injured in September.
Police say 29-year-old Kendal Readus of North Chicago, Illinois was the shooter and 29-year-old James Murphy of Hogansville, Georgia was the getaway driver.
Readus is on the run. Court documents indicate a warrant was issued for his arrest on Sept. 23. Police say Murphy was arrested in Georgia by local law enforcement, and his extradition to Kenosha is pending.
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As parties to a crime, Readus and Murphy are each charged with:
- First-degree intentional homicide (2 counts)
- First-degree recklessly endangering safety (2 counts)
- Discharging a firearm from a vehicle
Readus is also charged with one count of firearm possession by an outstate felon.
Details of the shooting
Four people were shot outside Las Margaritas Bar & Grill near 23rd and Roosevelt early Sept. 18. According to a criminal complaint, surveillance showed a car drive past the bar and fire shots. The shooter fired from the rear passenger seat, and the car sped off. Police found 12 bullet casings in the area.
The complaint states additional surveillance and witness statements placed Readus at the bar around 12:45 a.m. – roughly an hour before the shooting. Inside, one of the victims approached Readus. A third person, surveillance showed, punched Readus in the head. Security then removed several people, including whoever punched Readus, from the bar.
Around 1:10 a.m., the complaint states Readus was seen on surveillance leaving the bar. He, another man – later identified as Murphy – and a woman got into a car. The complaint states this was the same car involved in the shooting, which happened around 1:50 a.m.
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The complaint states the car was registered to the woman seen on surveillance with Readus and Murphy. Surveillance from her Illinois apartment building showed the car arrive around 2:35 a.m. the morning of the shooting. It showed Readus get out of the driver's seat, and the woman get out of the passenger seat.
In an interview with police later that day, per the complaint, the woman admitted it was her car. However, she initially denied being in it when shots were fired. She admitted days later that she was in the car, and said Readus fired shots from the back seat before they drove away. She said the driver – who she did not know – stopped in an "unknown" Kenosha parking lot, got out and ran.
The day after the shooting, the complaint states Readus "wanted to clear his name" and speak with police. In a conversation over the phone, Readus told police someone punched him in the head at the bar and "15 people across the street" were "waiting to attack him" after the incident. During the conversation, the complaint states, Readus refused to describe his clothing – which is how police identified him in the surveillance video – and said he did not hear any gunshots.
Shooting outside Las Margaritas Bar & Grill in Kenosha
The complaint states police reviewed Readus' phone records, which showed multiple calls to Murphy's number between 1 a.m. and the time of the shooting. Surveillance during that time showed one or both of the men on their phones at times that matched the phone records of their calls.
Murphy was officially developed as a suspect on Oct. 10, the complaint states. The woman was shown a photo array that included his picture, but she identified someone other than Murphy as the driver.
Per the complaint, Murphy was on supervision through the Wisconsin Department of Corrections until April 2022. Police obtained records, including his phone number. Phone records placed Murphy in the northern Illinois/southeastern Wisconsin area from Sept. 13-19 – after which time he went to Georgia. Specifically, the records placed him in Kenosha during the early morning hours of Sept. 18.
Murphy's phone records also showed he was in "constant contact" with a "262" number, according to the complaint. Police traced that number to a woman who had photos of herself and Murphy posted on Facebook. Police used those photos to identify him as the man seen on surveillance getting into the car from which the shots were fired. Identifying features included his clothing, facial hair and a tattoo on his right forearm. That tattoo was also listed in his Wisconsin DOC record, per the complaint.