August 17, 2023

JOLIET— Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announces that a jury today found Jermaine Mandley, 47, of Bolingbrook, guilty in the death of a young mother who was shot in front of her toddler. Mandley was found guilty on all three counts of First Degree Murder and two counts of Endangering the Life or Health of a Child following a trial that began Monday before Circuit Judge David Carlson.

On January 8, 2023, shortly after midnight, Joliet officers responded to a call for a suspicious silver Nissan Rogue parked in the alley west of the 1200 block of Clement Street in Joliet.  Officers found the deceased victim, 24-year-old Maya Smith, in the vehicle. She had been shot multiple times in her abdomen and head. Smith’s two-year-old daughter was in the back seat, tucked between the rear driver’s side door and rear seat. Shell casings were found on the front passenger side of the vehicle. Mandley had been in a relationship with Smith, and text messages on Smith’s phone confirmed that she had agreed to meet him on January 7. Mandley was scheduled to work the following day but did not show up. He was later located in Chicago.

A surveillance video of the alley from the Southside Civic Club captured an individual exiting the front passenger door of the vehicle and standing in the doorway, facing the inside of the vehicle with the door still open. The video captured what appeared to be muzzle flashes inside the vehicle. It then showed the individual shutting the vehicle’s door, running away, going back to the vehicle, and running again. Mandley’s DNA was found on the interior door handle of the passenger side of the vehicle, the same door the shooter exited on the video. Mandley’s face then appears on a Ring video camera at a friend’s house down the block approximately four minutes later.

A sentencing date has been scheduled for November 7. The sentencing range is 45 years to life in prison.

Glasgow thanked Assistant State’s Attorneys Amanda Tasker, Tricia McKenna, and Tom Slazyk, Victim Witness Advocate Mallory Magee, Assistant Danna Thayer, IT Specialist Robert Valiska, and the Joliet Police Department for their commitment and hard work in this case.