Teen Charged In Murder Of Bradley University Student From Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A 16-year-old male has been charged with murder for a shooting that left a Bradley University student from Chicago and a Peoria man dead.
The suspect, whose name has not been released due to his age, was arrested Wednesday night a few miles from where the shooting happened. He has been charged with first-degree murder, and was being held at the Peoria County Juvenile Detention Center.
Peoria police said officers responded to a call of shots fired at a party near the campus of Bradley University around 1:45 a.m. Sunday. When police arrived, several people were running out of the House. Officers found three people who had been shot.
Nasjay Murry, a freshman at Bradley, and Anthony Polnitz, of Peoria, were pronounced dead at the scene. Murry, 18, had been shot once in the head; Polnitz, 22, had been shot twice in the back and once in the face, according to Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood.
The third victim, another Bradley student, was treated at a local hospital and released.
Murry, a pre-med student from Chicago, graduated with high honors from Martin Luther King Jr. College Prep High School. She would have been the first in her family to graduate college.
"Nobody's really processed it yet, because we can't get used to talking about Nasjay in the past tense," her grandmother, Patricia Hill, said Monday.
Murry was the oldest of six grandchildren.
"She was my first baby; my first grand baby," Hill said. "She was just so ambitious. A bookworm. So smart. She would stay up all night doing her homework. She was just so special."
Authorities said more than 100 people had been at the party, including Bradley students and Peoria residents.
Police have not said what led to the shooting, or if Murry and Polnitz were the intended targets.
