'Oh No, Dad! No, Dad! No!' Jury Sees Joliet Homicidal Maniac Kill Entire Family As Little Boy, 3, Watches

JOLIET, IL — If you did not know any better and simply walked into the gallery of Courtroom 502 at any point Wednesday, you would have thought that Joliet criminal Romeo Nance is standing trial for at least seven murders, even though that's impossible. Nance took his own life in late January 2024 after the Texas Rangers cornered him and stopped him from reaching south of the border into Mexico.

This week, one of Joliet's most recognized criminal defense attorneys, Jeff Tomczak of Tomczak Law Group, is putting on his case for client Jon Hansen of Shorewood. Hansen, 27, is standing trial on one first-degree murder and one attempted murder for the final two shootings that happened on Sunday, Jan. 21, the date of Joliet's most significant mass murder spree in decades.

Tomczak maintains that his client had absolutely no role whatsoever in committing the final two shootings that day, the one that injured Mario Guerrero in his driveway on Davis Street and the deadly shooting of Nigerian immigrant Toyosi Bakare at the Pheasant Run Apartments in Preston Heights.

True, the defense concedes, Hansen got inside the car of Romeo Nance, along with Hansen's girlfriend, but at no point in time did the two passengers from Shorewood have any idea that Nance planned to orchestrate two more random shootings, according to arguments from Tomczak Law Group.

On Wednesday afternoon, Tomczak's criminal defense team, led by attorney Anna Rose Bertani, played for the jury several haunting in-home video security cameras leading up to the slayings of Nance's seven family members at their two houses on West Acres Road.

The jury also saw several graphic and bloody photos showing all seven murder victims who died of gunshots on West Acres Road.

Bertani warned the jury before she played one of the videos showing little Avery Nance, age 3, that the videos would be "fairly horrific, it's fair to say."

That particular video showed Romeo Nance carrying his large rifle as he was accompanied by his 3-year-old little boy as he assassinated his mother and uncle first, then went across the street. In the second disturbing video, Nance exclaims to one of his sisters, "Mom is dead," moments before he fatally shot her as well as two more of his sisters upstairs, before darting down to the basement to kill his older brother in his 30s and confined to a hospital bed, then finally his aunt, who was in her 40s.

In the first video shown for the jury, Hansen's lawyers played the short 20-second excerpt in which 3-year-old Avery Nance can be heard exclaiming, "Dad! Daddy, why? Daddy, why?"

That video showed Romeo Nance moving briskly through the inside of the house armed with his rifle, moments after Nance killed his own mother and murdered his uncle.

Both bodies were found on the floor of the kitchen or nearby living room, where the two rooms come together.

Joliet Police Detective Jason Wolski was called to the stand by the defense as they inquired about the in-home and outdoor home security videos that Joliet police obtained from the mass murders committed by Romeo Nance.

Wolski was asked if anyone else was with Romeo Nance as he entered the homes to slaughter his entire family.

"Yes, I believe it was Avery," Wolski told the jury.

When asked if he saw Romeo Nance in the videos too, Wolski testified, "Yes, he was the person walking around with a firearm."

Earlier this week during the trial, attorney Jeff Tomczak argued that Romeo Nance killed his entire family because Tameka Nance planned to obtain custody rights of Avery from her 23-year-old son and her son's girlfriend, Kyleigh Cleveland-Singleton.

In the video obtained from the second house on West Acres, Romeo Nance is seen armed with his rifle as he confronts one of his teenage sisters in the living room, seconds before taking her life and then walking through the upstairs and then downstairs and killing everyone else.

Prosecutors have maintained that the mass murders on West Acres and the late afternoon shootings of Guerrero and Bakare are two completely different criminal acts and that the second set of events was engineered by Hansen.

The childhood pal of Romeo Nance was calling and texting Nance and several other known Milwaukee Kings gang members for several hours beginning that Sunday morning, trying to roundup people to join him for some drive-by shootings around Joliet that would target the rival Vice Lords street gang, according to the prosecution's theory of what happened.

Ultimately, when Will County prosecutor Alexandra "Alex" Molesky had her chance to cross examine the defense's witness, she remarked to Detective Wolski, "And Jon Hansen wasn't charged with anything that's on this video?"

"That's correct," he answered.

Before the day ended, the defense called Joliet police evidence technician Jerry Austin to the witness stand to talk about his role processing the murder scenes on West Acres as well as two vehicles that belonged to Nance's girlfriend, Kyleigh Cleveland-Singleton. The second vehicle, still containing dealership license plates, was purchased by her the day before the mass murders happened, leaving her with a total of two vehicles for the police to impound and process.

Cleveland drove Romeo Nance to and from the scene of the murders that Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024, according to testimony. However, she and Nance also lived together at one of those houses at the time of the killings, according to evidence discovered by Joliet's evidence technician.

Austin testified he was assigned to the house where there were five murder victims discovered. One at a time, defense attorney Patti Kalkanis asked him direct questions about the nature of the gunshot wounds and injuries to the bodies of those five victims.

"There were four females and a male," he told the jury.

The photos from the crime scene showed to the jury contained holes in the bodies and disfigured faces for many of the gunshot victims. One of the female victims lay dead on the floor with her eyes wide open.

Austin testified she had a gunshot to her chest and a gunshot through her right cheek.

Down in the basement, Joshua Nance was shot in the upper neck and chest area while wrapped up in his warm blankets in his hospital bed. He was disabled and on a feeding tube when his younger brother murdered him, according to the defense.

The final victim who was discovered was Romeo Nance's aunt, Christine Esters, who was found in a pile of clothes near a basement closet area, Austin testified.

Kalkanis, Hansen's lawyer, asked her witness how many shell casings were found inside the house where the five family members were slain by rifle.

"I believe it was in the 20-something range," Austin testified.

When showing the crime scene photos of Nance's mother and his uncle, the Tomczak Law Group emphasized that the uncle was wearing a SECURITY T-shirt and his holster was empty, implying that his gun was taken during his slaying.

Tomczak Law also drew attention to Romeo Nance's mother, suggesting her face was badly deformed, making her the only family member that Romeo Nance savagely beat in addition to shooting them dead.

Back in 2024, Joliet Patch reported that Romeo Nance, the 23-year-old Joliet criminal defendant who was suspected of killing seven people on the street where he lived, West Acres Road, plus a 28-year-old man from Nigeria at Joliet Township's Pheasant Run apartments over the weekend, took his own life in Texas, Joliet police spokesman Dwayne English announced.

Nance died at a gas station in Natalia, Texas.

During the investigation, Joliet police detectives said they quickly identified Nance as a suspect in the homicides on West Acres Road, and it was believed he was also involved in a fatal shooting being investigated by the Will County Sheriff’s Office as well as a non-fatal shooting in the city of Joliet.

In January 2024, Joliet police said they learned Nance had been found by U.S. Marshals near Natalia, Texas, at which time it was believed Nance took his own life with a handgun following a confrontation with Texas law enforcement officials.