Jurors watched the confrontation that Willis Ellis said made him fear for his safety before he shot Lyndon Hunt.
JOLIET, Ill. — The camera mounted at a Joliet apartment property recorded a neighborhood argument that lasted only minutes but became the central piece of evidence in a murder trial, capturing the confrontation before Willis Ellis fatally shot fellow resident Lyndon Hunt and later claimed he had acted to protect himself.
The recording mattered because the essential act was never seriously in dispute: Ellis, 58, fired the shot that wounded Hunt, 60, outside their Nicholson Street residence on May 8. Ellis remained at the scene, called 911 and identified himself as the shooter. The legal dispute instead centered on what Hunt was doing, what Ellis believed and whether deadly force was justified. Prosecutors said the home-security video showed Hunt in the yard rather than advancing on Ellis when the gun was fired. Ellis testified that he nevertheless believed Hunt’s threats were real. On July 14, after hearing that competing interpretation of the same confrontation, a Will County jury convicted Ellis of second-degree murder.
The video began with a setting that gave little indication of the violence to come. Ellis was outside grilling during a Mother’s Day weekend gathering for his wife and in-laws, according to courtroom reporting. Hunt was nearby working on fishing poles. The men shared the same apartment property and began arguing. Prosecutors said one video segment showed Ellis at the grill and Hunt, who was shirtless, verbally confronting him. Neither man touched the other in that portion of the recording. Hunt then walked down the stairs into the front yard, where prosecutors said he appeared to be challenging Ellis to a fistfight. The insults continued, but the physical distance between the men became a major part of the state’s later argument.
A second portion of the recording captured the decisive movement. In a pretrial court filing, prosecutors alleged that Ellis came from the top of the stairs toward Hunt and fired while Hunt was still in the yard. Prosecutors said Hunt was not approaching Ellis when the shot was fired. They also said there was no indication on the recording that Hunt possessed a weapon and that investigators did not recover evidence showing he had been armed. Trial reporting said Hunt fell after being shot and pleaded with Ellis not to continue. The prosecution used the recording to argue that a verbal threat and invitation to fight did not make the fatal use of a firearm legally necessary.
Ellis gave jurors a different explanation for the same moments. Taking the witness stand in his own defense, he said he believed Hunt intended to carry out threats made during the dispute. His testimony framed the confrontation as one in which he felt endangered even if the video did not show Hunt closing the distance at the instant of the shot. Prosecutors pressed Ellis about his own conduct. Courtroom reporting said the recording showed him laughing during part of the exchange, a reaction prosecutors cited in challenging his claimed fear. Ellis reportedly explained that he laughed because he was afraid. He also acknowledged that he had threatened Hunt, leaving jurors to assess the conduct of both men rather than hearing a one-sided verbal confrontation.
The security recording was not the only evidence giving investigators a timeline. A teenager attending a nearby prom-related gathering told police that she had been looking outside and saw men around Hunt before the argument developed, according to prosecutors. The other men left as the dispute between Hunt and Ellis intensified. The witness reported hearing a statement that a gun would be retrieved if Hunt continued getting in the person’s face. She turned away and then heard a shot. When she looked outside again, Hunt was on the ground. Other neighbors reported hearing an argument followed by a single gunshot but did not see the shooting, prosecutors said. Those accounts added context while leaving the camera as the most direct visual record.
The dispute also had a history that extended beyond the cookout. Hunt’s wife told investigators the two neighbors had experienced repeated friction at the apartment building, according to the prosecution’s pretrial detention filing. She described disagreements over noise and said Ellis, who lived above them, sometimes stomped on his floor in response. Her account suggested that May 8 was not the first time the men had irritated or confronted one another. But the trial did not turn on whether the neighbors liked each other or who had initiated every earlier disagreement. The central issue was the immediate encounter captured on video and whether Ellis had legal justification to use deadly force during that particular confrontation.
Police arrived in the 200 block of Nicholson Street shortly after the shooting and found Hunt wounded in the front yard. Joliet officers began emergency aid before fire department paramedics took him to Ascension Saint Joseph Medical Center in critical condition. Hunt later died. An autopsy determined that the gunshot wound to his abdomen caused his death. Ellis was still outside when police arrived. Prosecutors said he told officers where to find the handgun, which was near the stairs. His wife supplied investigators with the Blink-camera footage. That sequence meant investigators quickly had a self-identified shooter, a recovered firearm, a recorded confrontation and witnesses who could describe what they had heard immediately before and after the gunshot.
Authorities initially approved an aggravated battery with a firearm charge while Hunt was still being treated and the investigation continued. Once Hunt died, the case became a homicide investigation. The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office subsequently charged Ellis with three counts of first-degree murder and asked a judge to keep him in custody before trial. The judge granted the detention request. Prosecutors cited the video, witness statements and circumstances surrounding the shooting in arguing that Ellis posed a danger warranting detention. Ellis was represented by private attorney David McDermott during the pretrial proceedings, according to local reporting.
The case then advanced at an unusually fast pace for a murder prosecution. The shooting occurred May 8, and the jury returned its verdict July 14, less than three months later. Prosecutors presented the physical evidence and testimony and Ellis asserted self-defense. The jury did not acquit him, which would have followed a complete acceptance of a legally justified use of deadly force. It also did not return the first-degree murder verdict originally sought by prosecutors. Instead, it found him guilty of second-degree murder, a conviction that under Illinois law reflects an intentional or knowing killing meeting first-degree murder elements but accompanied by one of the mitigating circumstances specified in the second-degree murder statute.
Illinois law makes the distinction particularly relevant to a case involving claimed self-defense. One statutory path to second-degree murder applies when a defendant believes circumstances exist that would justify or exonerate a killing under self-defense principles, but that belief is unreasonable. The law also recognizes sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation as a separate mitigating circumstance. Once evidence of such a mitigating factor is presented, the defendant must establish it by a preponderance of the evidence. The prosecution still bears its burden on the elements of the underlying homicide and, when self-defense is properly raised, on the absence of circumstances that would legally justify the killing. The public sources reviewed here do not identify which mitigating theory the jury specifically adopted.
The statutory distinction also changes the potential punishment. Illinois classifies second-degree murder as a Class 1 felony. If a prison sentence is imposed, state law sets the imprisonment range for second-degree murder at four to 20 years. That is different from first-degree murder, for which Illinois law generally requires substantially longer imprisonment. The verdict therefore represented both a rejection of Ellis’ request to treat the shooting as lawful self-defense and a departure from the first-degree murder judgment the prosecution had sought. Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said afterward that self-defense is a fundamental protection but has limits, and he credited the jury with evaluating the evidence before reaching its decision.
The visual record that gave jurors an unusual vantage point cannot answer every question the shooting left behind. A camera can show where people stood and how they moved, but Ellis’ claimed perception of danger still had to be judged through testimony, the surrounding circumstances and the law. Hunt’s death ended a long-running neighborhood relationship in which earlier complaints had apparently remained verbal. The May 8 argument crossed that line when a firearm was introduced. Ellis’ immediate 911 call and decision to remain at the scene simplified the question of who fired, but they did not settle whether he was legally entitled to fire. That was the question the jury ultimately resolved against a complete self-defense claim.
No final sentencing outcome for Ellis was confirmed in the reliable publicly indexed sources reviewed through Aug. 22. Prosecutors said after the verdict that sentencing would be scheduled later. Until a judge imposes sentence and that disposition is publicly confirmed, the second-degree murder conviction is the latest established result of the case.
Author note: Last updated August 22, 2026.