Murder charge filed in 2011 shooting death of truck driver in East St. Louis

Fourteen years after 40-year-old Truman Lee Smith was gunned down while making a delivery as a truck driver in East St. Louis, a murder charge has been filed against a suspect.

Alan Davis, 34, of East St. Louis was charged Thursday with first-degree murder in connection with Smith’s death, Illinois State Police announced Friday. He was being held in an Illinois state prison Thursday on an unrelated charge.

The shooting occurred on Feb. 17, 2011, in the 2600 block of McCasland Avenue in East St. Louis, where Smith was making a delivery and was approached by a man with a gun. Illinois State Police said the suspect “demanded money and shot Smith during the altercation.”

Smith, who was from Irondale, Missouri, was able to tell officers what had happened and give a description of the suspect before he died in an area hospital, Illinois State Police reported in a news release.

The news release doesn’t explain how officers gathered enough evidence to file the murder charge against Davis but said there was “an exhaustive investigation. No other information was available to be released.

Davis is in the Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro, Illinois, on a 2012 conviction for aggravated battery with a firearm, according to the news release.