CHICAGO — A man convicted in a 2015 shooting that left a woman dead is back in prison, accused of killing a man near the Howard CTA station earlier this year. Judge William Fahy arrested 27-year-old John Parker as a threat to public safety after prosecutors laid out the charges in court this week.
Surveillance video of the June 17 murder obtained by CWBChicago showed the victim, Terrance Allen, 46, in the driver’s seat of a car on the northwest corner of Paulina and Howard shortly after midnight. The car’s headlights and hazard lights were on while Allen sat with his feet on the sidewalk next to the vehicle. (Video link. Discretion is advised.)
The streets appeared mostly empty as the killer, wearing a black hoodie, approached Allen’s car from behind. The gunman paused, put his hand on a tree for leverage and peered through the rear window of Allen’s car, apparently to confirm that the occupant was the man he wanted to kill.
With his target confirmed, the killer slid around the back of Allen’s car and opened fire. Allen stood up from his seat and fell to the sidewalk as the gunman backed away, still firing. Police later found fourteen shell casings at the scene.
Mortally injured, Allen rolled across the sidewalk and came to a stop on his back in front of his car. The video showed that although the streets appeared empty, at least ten people were in the immediate vicinity of the shooting, some sitting in other cars, others hiding out of sight until the shooting began.
Chicago police officers arrested Parker Wednesday at the Cook County Jail on suspicion of murder in Allen’s death.
Parker has been in jail since late July after police allegedly caught him with a loaded firearm in the 1600 block of West Jonquil Terrace while wearing a ski mask, court records show. He is charged as a Class X armed habitual criminal.
He also completed his parole in May for a A shooting in 2015 left a woman dead.
In that shooting, prosecutors said Parker and another man tried to shoot the passenger in a car in the 1500 block of West Morse, unintentionally shooting the car’s driver instead. The victim, 42-year-old Carla Martinez, was paralyzed from the neck down and lost her legs due to complications from injuries she suffered when her car crashed after the shooting, officials said. Martinez died from her injuries in April 2020, nearly five years after the shooting.
Parker pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of attempted murder in exchange for an eight-year prison sentence from Judge Joanne Rosado, court records show.
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