Man charged with first-degree murder in Brooklyn woman’s death
A man with a history of multiple domestic battery convictions has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 37-year-old woman this week in the village of Brooklyn.
Charges filed Thursday by the St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s office allege Demario A. Ursery, 46, of East St. Louis, struck and strangled Dolnesha A. Jones.
Jones was pronounced dead by St. Clair County Coroner Calvin Dye Sr.’s office at 11:45 a.m. Tuesday in her apartment at the Thomas Terry Apartments. Dye said Tuesday her cause of death appeared to be suffocation, but an autopsy was still pending at the time.
Ursery has been charged with domestic battery five times since he was 19 years old and convicted four times, court records show. He is on probation for the most recent charge from 2023.
Usery was arrested Tuesday and remains in the St. Clair County Jail. He does not yet have an attorney listed in the murder case.
Illinois State Police assisted the Brooklyn Police Department in the homicide investigation.
History of domestic battery
Ursery was convicted of misdemeanor domestic battery and felony aggravated battery in 2005 for punching a pregnant woman, court records show. He was sentenced to two years in prison in that case.
Then in 2008, he was convicted of felony domestic battery for hitting a woman in the face with a wooden stick and sentenced to two weeks in jail and one year of probation.
Ursery’s next conviction came in 2016 for violating an order of protection and felony domestic battery. He was accused of calling a woman in violation of her no-contact order and slapping her. He was sentenced to 30 months of probation.
His latest felony domestic battery conviction was from a 2023 charge accusing him of hitting a woman in the face. He was sentenced in 2024 to one weekend in jail and received 30 months of probation, which remains ongoing.
A misdemeanor domestic battery charge against him in 1999 when he was 19 years old was dismissed by the prosecutor at the time.
Since 2012, four former girlfriends sought orders of protection against Usery because they said he hit and threatened them, according to their handwritten court filings. Among them were two women he was accused of battering in his 2016 and 2023 charges.
“I fear for my life every day of seeing him,” one woman wrote in her petition for a no-contact order.
“I just want to feel safe,” wrote another.
This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 3:01 PM.
