Belleville murder suspect faces lawsuit by victim’s family in addition to criminal trial
It’s been nearly a year since a man allegedly stabbed to death a family friend at his mother’s Belleville home after being treated for mental illness and telling police, doctors and others that he was going to kill someone.
Bailey Hamor, 27, formerly of Belleville and East Alton, remains in St. Clair County Jail on a $2 million bond. A judge has found him fit to stand trail on one count of first-degree murder, a charge to which he has pleaded not guilty. His next court hearing is set for July 11.
“We’re trying to meet with his lawyer to file a motion to reduce bond so we can get it down to something we can actually afford,” Hamor’s mother, Cheri Koene, said last week.
Hamor is being represented by Wood River attorney Joseph Reames, who didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Hamor described himself as schizophrenic in a Facebook post shortly before the stabbing. He’s taking a new medication and rarely leaves his jail cell, according to his mother.
“He’s gained 70 or 80 pounds,” she said.
Circuit Judge Zina Cruse issued an order in January finding that Hamor was fit to stand trial. She referenced her own observations of him, as well as an October 2022 report from Belleville clinical psychologist Daniel Cuneo, who recommended that he be found fit.
“(Cuneo) opines that Defendant understands the nature and purpose of the proceedings against him and has the ability to assist in his own defense,” the order stated.
Brother files wrongful-death suit
Beyond the criminal case, Hamor has been named as one of two defendants in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Joseph Goodwin, brother of murder victim James Goodwin, 33, of Belleville, who was friends with Cheri Koene.
The other defendant is Leonardus “Loek” Koene, who was married to Cheri Koene and who owns the home at 1034 Golfview Court, where the murder occurred on July 20, 2022. They’re now divorced.
The lawsuit alleges that Leonardus Koene was partly responsible for James Goodwin’s death because he allowed Hamor to stay at the home, where knives were accessible in the kitchen.
“Knowing that Bailey R. Hamor was suffering from mental problems with a high propensity for violence, Leonardus Koene allowed free reign of his home, and at the same time did nothing to secure obvious potentially deadly weapons present in the home, including the large knife used to kill James R. Goodwin,” the lawsuit states.
That statement represents the first public reference to a kitchen knife as the murder weapon.
The lawsuit also referred to the murder occurring “inside” the home. Sheriff’s deputies reported last year that they found James Goodwin’s body lying in a pool of blood in front of the three-car garage.
Diagnosed with schizophrenia
Bailey Hamor was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia about five years ago, according to his mother and father, Robert Hamor, of East Alton.
Records show that Bailey Hamor’s troubling behavior resulted in dozens of contacts with police and several stays in hospital psychiatric units. He called 911 on July 11, 2022, and told officers that he was headed to Granite City to kill a man who had raped a female.
Hamor also spoke of being pursued by Russian and German soldiers he believed were trying to “assassinate” him and a “demon” that was ordering him to kill, according to family members.
The Koenes had concerns about Hamor at about 10 p.m. on July 19, 2022, when they called St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department to their home in an unincorporated subdivision west of Belleville, near Elmwood Golf Course on Eiler Road. Millstadt EMS personnel determined he “wasn’t a danger to himself or others.”
The Koenes made a second call to 911 about three hours later to report that James Goodwin had been murdered.
“The suspect was still on foot in the area, said to be armed with at least one knife, wearing fatigue camouflage clothing, body armor and a ballistic helmet with light,” Belleville’s police report stated.
A search team apprehended Hamor in a nearby wooded area about 1:30 a.m. on July 20, 2022.
In August, a grand jury indicted Hamor on one count of first-degree murder, alleging that he “stabbed James Goodwin about the head and body with a knife, thereby causing (his) death.”
James Goodwin’s obituary listed two surviving brothers, Joe and Ian Bohannon. It’s not known why the plaintiff in the wrongful-death lawsuit is identified as Joseph Goodwin. He couldn’t be reached. His Wood River attorney, Thomas Maag, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Cheri Koene said she had hired Joe Bohannon to do maintenance work when the Koenes were renting part of their home as an “Airbnb,” and that she took him to Maag’s office after the murder.
“I thought he was suing the cops and the ambulance and the hospital,” she said, referring to the sheriff’s department, Millstadt EMS and Gateway Regional Medical Center in Granite City, which had released Hamor from its psychiatric unit on July 14, 2022.
“But without my knowledge, it turned into a wrongful-death suit against Loek and Bailey.”
Family friend or lodging guest?
The civil lawsuit was first filed in December 2022 in St. Clair County Circuit Court. It didn’t mention Cheri Koene.
The lawsuit described Leonardus Koene as an “innkeeper” who rented space in his home under the name “Great Stay Lodging.” It also referred to James Goodwin as a “guest.”
“We did (lodging rental) for a little bit in 2019 and 2020, but we had to close our business,” Leonardus Koene said this week.
Leonardus Koene said he would never have invited James Goodwin to stay overnight at the home. He declined further comment on the advice of his Decatur attorney, Jack Kiley.
In March, Associate Judge Chris Kolker granted Kiley’s motion on behalf of Leonardus Koene to dismiss Maag’s first amended complaint, prompting Maag to file a second amended complaint.
Kiley then filed another motion to dismiss in mid-May, stating that the second amended complaint again failed to successfully “trigger the special innkeeper and guest relationship that may give rise to a duty to protects an individual from criminal attack.”
“At the time of the decedent’s death, the premises was just a house,” the motion stated. “It was not an ‘inn’ and the Defendant was not an ‘innkeeper.’”
The lawsuit asks for damages in excess of $50,000, the maximum amount that can be sought in filings under jurisdictional limits and usually less than what attorneys argue that plaintiffs are due.
A jury trial on the civil case is set for Dec. 11.
This story was originally published June 29, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
