A 78-year-old Navy veteran, John Wesley Allen Sr., was identified by a hospital bracelet after a 15-year-old in a clown costume fatally stabbed him at an East St. Louis bus stop on Monday night
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East St. Louis police responded to a residential neighborhood east of Interstate 255 around 10 p.m. Monday after receiving a report of a body in the roadway
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The victim was stabbed multiple times, according to the St. Clair County Coroner
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The person wearing a clown costume in video circulating online is a 15-year-old boy in custody in connection with the fatal stabbing
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Less than an hour before Allen’s body was discovered, a Ring camera recorded the suspect outside a home three blocks away, with neighbors describing someone moving between homes, peering through windows and carrying a large knife
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A figure dressed in a baggy black and red clown outfit, their face partially covered, approached the Ring camera late at night, glaring into the lens and whispering, “I’m looking for you”
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Lee Palmer, whose mother’s Ring camera recorded the footage, told KSDK he was glad his elderly mother, who lives alone, did not open the door
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“I’m thinking he’s going to kill everybody in the house the way he came,” Palmer said
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Authorities identified the teen and took him into custody at a home late Monday night, facing a delinquency petition alleging a first-degree murder charge
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The St. Clair County State’s Attorney’s Office has asked the court to allow the teen to be prosecuted as an adult
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Allen, who lived in a senior living complex in St. Louis, had gone to the VA hospital for a checkup Monday before planning to visit his sister
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The intersection where he was found is near a bus stop Allen would frequent for surprise visits, with his 82-year-old sister Delores Fowler telling NBC News, “He’d never make an appointment. He’d just call me and say, ‘Are you at home?’ Then I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’ll come get you at the MetroLink station or the bus stop'”
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Fowler described her brother as “a very friendly person. He would talk to anybody. He just loved people”
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She said, “We always had a good time with our brother”
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Allen’s niece Tenia Stanford described him as someone everyone could count on, saying “He was an uncle that you could talk to, you could call. He was just an amazing man”
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Allen spent more than three decades driving buses for Bi-State, Vandalia and Greyhound before retiring, and Tenia said, “My uncle has been driving buses over 35 years, and this is the first time ever something happened to him… getting off the bus”
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Allen was lovingly referred to as “baby boy” because he was the youngest of six siblings and was a loyal churchgoer who spent his life serving others
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Just days before he was killed, Allen had returned from a church convention, with sister Marie noting, “He said he had one of the best times in a long time. He said I feel so good since I came from that convention”
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His niece described him as someone everyone could count on
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His sister Marie Stanford told KSDK through tears, “He’s the best brother that someone took away. I’m going to miss him”
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Allen’s family said they did not know the teenager accused of killing him and believe the attack was completely random
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Sister Marie said, “I’m just wondering why this person did this. He didn’t know my brother. He just came up and random stabbing him. That don’t make no sense”
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Allen’s loved ones are struggling to understand why the random act of violence happened
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Allen’s loved ones only found out about his death from local news, with Fowler saying she didn’t believe her brother had been killed even after hearing his partial name read on TV
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She recalled turning on the TV and hearing “Wesley Allen” and saying to herself, “Well, that’s not him. His name is John Wesley Allen”
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Fowler said, “We want him tried as an adult. He took a person’s life for no reason”
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In the viral moment that shocked the neighborhood, the suspect was caught on Ring footage approaching a home in a baggy black and red clown costume shortly before the killing. The eerie doorbell video showed the teen peering directly into the camera and whispering a chilling warning. Neighbors had reported seeing someone in a clown outfit moving between homes, peering through windows and carrying a large knife in the minutes before Allen’s death at the bus stop. The suspect was taken into custody hours later after being identified by authorities.
The prosecutor is seeking to try the 15-year-old as an adult on the first-degree murder charge
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