Maya Smith’s Joliet Murder: More Charges For Jermaine Mandley

Crime & Safety

A career criminal, Jermaine Mandley shot Maya Smith, 24, eight times inside her car including five times in her face, sources have said.

John Ferak , Patch Staff

JOLIET, IL — The Will County State’s Attorney’s Office of Jim Glasgow has added two child endangerment charges for Jermaine Mandley, the 47-year-old Bolingbrook resident already charged with first-degree murder in the death of 24-year-old mother, Maya Smith.

Mandley now faces a total of three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of endangering the life or health of a child. Mandley has been detained in the Will County Jail since the night of Jan. 10. His bail is $5 million.

Mandley is accused of killing Smith by shooting her a total of eight times, including five times in her face. The homicide happened in a Joliet alley on the city’s west side, in the 1200 block of Clement Street, early Saturday evening on Jan. 7.

The child endangerment complaint states that Mandley caused or permitted the life or health of a child under the age of 18 to be endangered, in that Mandley fired a handgun in close proximity to the child. Joliet Patch has previously reported that Smith’s 2-year-old daughter was strapped into her car seat in the back when her mother was fatally shot.

The second child endangerment count indicates that Mandley left the little girl unattended in a vehicle in unreasonable conditions for an unreasonable amount of time.

Patch has previously reported that the killing may have occurred between 5 and 6 p.m. Joliet police were first called to the alley around 12:20 a.m. and that’s when they found Smith slain in the driver’s seat and her little girl, unharmed, strapped into her rear car seat.

Smith and Mandley had an on-again, off-again romantic relationship, sources told Patch in January.

When the killing happened, Mandley had been in the passenger seat of Smith’s car, according to one source. After shooting Smith, Mandley exited her car and went to a house about 100 yards away, where several of his friends already were, the source indicated.

From that house, police believe that Mandley called for an Uber and got a ride back to his place in Bolingbrook. Three days later, a federal fugitive task force, working closely with the Joliet Police Department’s detective unit, pulled over a car near the Chicago-Hammond, Indiana border and Mandley was taken into custody.

This week, Assistant Will County State’s Attorney Tricia McKenna filed a motion asking that a Will County judge approve her motion to consume DNA evidence. Joliet police had collected evidence from the inside passenger front door handle of the victim’s car; a Remy Martin Cognac bottle and swabs from the mouth and inside cap of an Ice Mountain water bottle, plus a blood stain on the water bottle.

“The Illinois State Police Crime Lab has informed (prosecutors) that in order to conduct testing on those items … those swabs would be consumed,” McKenna’s motion noted.

Related Patch coverage:

Joliet Mom’s Murder: Little Girl, 2, Left In Car Several Hours

Arrest Made In Joliet Slaying Of Maya Smith: $5 Million Bail Set

‘No One Deserved To Be Treated This Way’ Joliet Victim’s Family Says