Chilling doorbell camera footage appears to show a masked teenager in a clown costume moving from house to house shortly before authorities arrested him in connection with the killing of an elderly neighbor.
The Illinois State Police said officers were called to an intersection in East St. Louis on Monday just after 10 p.m. following reports that a body had been found in the road.
A 15-year-old, whose name has not been released, was taken into custody Tuesday as investigators pursued the homicide case.
The victim was later identified by the St. Clair County Coroner as 78-year-old John Wesley Allen Sr., according to FirstAlert4.
Less than an hour before officers arrived at the scene, the teen was apparently recorded staring into a Ring doorbell camera at a nearby home. East St. Louis resident Lora Palmer shared the footage and said the camera belonged to her mother.
In the unsettling clip, the masked figure can be heard speaking softly, appearing to whisper either, “I have a gift for you,” or, “I’ve been looking for you.”
State police said the teenager was identified quickly and located at a home.
Illinois State Police also noted that “video footage of the suspect dressed in a clown costume has been circulating” and said investigators were working to “collect all relevant video” as part of the East St. Louis murder investigation.
The wide-eyed 15-year-old suspect was caught staring into a local Ring camera, which was shared on Facebook by Lora Palmer
The teenager was taken into custody on Tuesday by the Illinois State Police as part of a homicide investigation
In the doorbell camera video, the masked suspect approached the camera and seemed to quietly utter, ‘I’ve been looking for you’
No details were given about where the teen was found exactly or what he was doing at the time.
As of early afternoon Thursday, no charges against the teen had been publicly announced.
After the arrest, law enforcement said there was no threat remaining to the public.
Allen was pronounced dead at the scene just before 11.30pm, the St Clair County coroner told PEOPLE.
Lee Palmer explained that his mother was home alone when the teenager in the clown attire appeared on the front porch.
The teen stayed on their property for minutes before going behind the house, which caused Palmer to become deeply concerned.
‘He’s going to kill everybody in the house,’ Palmer told FirstAlert4. ‘Why out of all the houses, why come to this house?’
Palmer said his chief concern was that the teen could be armed and hurt his mother.
The footage was captured on Lora Palmer’s Ring camera. Her son, Lee, said Lora was home alone when the masked teenager appeared
The East St Louis Police Department originally responded to a body, later identified as John Wesley Allen Sr., 78, at the the intersection of North 76th Street and State Street on Monday
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ he said. ‘That was kind of spooky for her.’
Palmer added that the best thing he could do was ‘keep being safe’ and urged his neighbors to get a Ring camera.
He said the teen was ‘not in the right state of mind to walk on somebody’s porch like that.’
‘It’s just unimaginable,’ Palmer told NBC News.
The distance from where the Ring camera footage was captured in the 8200 block of Carol Drive and the intersection where Allen was found is about a 10-minute walk.
A separate neighbor, Corrine Spry, said she was on the back porch with her family when she spotted the attacker twirling a knife.
‘He was up to no good,’ Spry told the outlet. ‘We’re pretty positive he circled back around in these woods, because you could hear the sticks breaking.’
Spry said the teen roamed the area for roughly 45 minutes before law enforcement arrived.
She feared that he could have attacked anyone in her neighborhood.
