St. Clair County jury reaches verdict in highway murder that closed bridges
A St. Clair County jury has found an East St. Louis man not guilty in the murder of one man and shooting of another on Interstate 64 last summer.
The trial of Trenton A. Jefferson, 32, started on Monday, March 21, at the Belleville courthouse. The jury handed down its verdict Friday, according to the St. Clair County circuit clerk’s office.
“Trenton took the stand in his own defense, and he vigorously denied that he did it,” said Belleville attorney Thomas Q. Keefe III, who is serving as his public defender.
It was an unusual case because of Jefferson’s status at the time of his arrest. He was out on bond, awaiting a new trial that he had won on appeal after being convicted in 2013 of a different murder.
The more recent shootings occurred about 8:30 p.m. on June 25, 2021, on Interstate 64 in East St. Louis. The Martin Luther King Bridge and Poplar Street Bridge were closed for about two hours due to the Illinois State Police investigation.
Kendris Glenn, 37, of Cahokia, was pronounced dead at the scene. His brother, Cory Glenn, was transported to a hospital and survived, although police didn’t name him at the time.
Jefferson was arrested in November and indicted by a grand jury in December on one count of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of possession of a weapon by a felon.
Jefferson was accused of shooting Kendris Glenn in the head and Cory Glenn multiple times about his body, according to charging documents filed in St. Clair County Circuit Court.
“Our defense was, No. 1 the state was incorrect about motive, No. 2 the eyewitness testimony was unreliable and No. 3 the cellphone evidence was open to many reasonable interpretations,” Keefe said Monday.
Jefferson is still being held at the St. Clair County Jail on the weapons charge, which wasn’t part of last week’s trial. Keefe plans to move for dismissal with a double-jeopardy argument.
Chris Allen, spokesman for the St. Clair County state’s attorney’s office, couldn’t immediately be reached Monday for comment on the trial.
“We are grateful to the jury, and I have the greatest respect for (the prosecutors), who are honorable and tenacious opponents,” Keefe said.
Jefferson was 21 in 2011, when he was indicted on one count of first-degree murder in the 2010 death of Marcus Gosa, 17, of Washington Park, a student at East St. Louis Senior High School. Gosa had been shot in an alley between 44th and 45th streets in East St. Louis, according to investigators.
A month after Jefferson’s indictment, St. Louis police shot and killed Renaldo Brownlee, the other suspect, who reportedly pulled a gun on an officer during an armed robbery.
Jefferson’s first trial in 2012 ended with a mistrial after the jury became deadlocked. The jury in his second trial in 2013 deliberated about 90 minutes before handing down a guilty verdict. Former Chief Judge John Baricevic sentenced him to 30 years in prison.
After the conviction, Jefferson appealed to the Fifth District Appellate Court of Illinois in Mount Vernon. That court reversed the conviction in 2016 and ordered that he be granted a new trial.
Baricevic made a “reversible error in admitting the irrelevant and prejudicial testimony of a witness regarding statements made by the defendant,” the appellate order stated.
Jefferson’s bond was reduced to $50,000 in 2017. He was later released with electronic monitoring, court records show.
Jefferson’s criminal record in St. Clair County also includes convictions for disorderly conduct in 2004 and 2008 and unlawful use of a weapon and obstruction of justice in 2008.
After Jefferson was charged with murder and incarcerated in 2011, he and 12 other inmates at the St. Clair County jail were charged with obstructing correctional institution employees. They allegedly banded together to prevent officers from removing a suicidal man from his cell.
In 2010, Jefferson was charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm for allegedly shooting East St. Louis teenager Earl Ladd in the eye.
Charges in the 2011 jail incident and 2010 shooting involving Ladd are pending with court appearances set in July.
This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 1:10 PM.
