HISTORY OF TROUBLE BEFORE STANDOFF
Jealousy, intimidation and cruelty reigned over a 3-year-old south suburban marriage that finally erupted last weekend with the wife’s death and a violent standoff on Lake Shore Drive, records show.
Chicago Police confirmed on Monday that they opened fire along with Illinois State Police at the Georgia murder suspect who held police at bay for nearly nine hours Sunday. That man, thought to be 43-year-old Joseph Andrew Felton Jr., was not shot, police said.
No criminal charges had been filed in connection with the standoff as of Monday evening.
Felton’s wife, Sheray Felton, was found dead Saturday at her home in Hampton, Ga. She moved there from the Chicago area to get away from the man records show she married in January 2011.
Joseph Felton turned out to be a violent, suspicious and controlling husband, according to Sheray Felton’s claims, as she sought multiple protection orders against him over the years.
She said he gagged her and held her against her will.
She said he stabbed her with scissors.
And she said he repeatedly threatened her life.
Her family found her body in her home on Saturday, Georgia police said.
The next day, investigators down south reached out to the Harvey Police Department. Sandra Alvarado, a Harvey police spokeswoman, said officers spotted the suspect’s car at 148th and Myrtle — near Felton’s former home there. Harvey officers chased the suspect’s car 20 miles into Chicago and onto Lake Shore Drive.
Chicago and state police opened fire on the suspect after he rammed his car into a vehicle filled with civilians near the 2000 block of North Lake Shore Drive, according to the Chicago Police Department.
Later, police thought the suspect was holding a handgun after he drove into a Chicago police vehicle and officers tried to render aid. That’s when Chicago police fired a second time, according to CPD.
The suspect refused to get out of his car, which was no longer drivable, leading to the standoff. Chicago police would not confirm whether any guns were recovered from his car once they finally took him into custody.
A Cook County judge sentenced Felton to 13 years in prison for attempted murder in 2001, according to court records. He got out in December 2010 but went back twice for parole violations, records show.
He was charged earlier this year in Henry County, Ga., with false imprisonment and simple battery. Jim Wright, the district attorney there, said a grand jury declined on Thursday to indict him on those charges after Sheray Felton failed to appear for testimony.
However, she sought a protective order against him in January, explaining her ordeal. In a petition seeking the protective order, she claimed that Joseph Felton attacked her after she made arrangements for their 22-year-old son to visit, pulling off a wig that was sewn to her head, knocking her down and dragging her across the floor by her feet.
She also wrote in the petition that he picked her up and threw her on a futon, upset because their son was coming to visit. She said he cursed at her and made threats against their son. He wouldn’t let her get up, not even to go to the bathroom, so she said she urinated on the bed and lay in her own urine for a few hours until Felton fell asleep.
The next day, she wrote, he threw her to the floor. She managed to call 911, though, and she screamed for help when police arrived. That’s when he gagged her with a pair of basketball shorts before police arrested him, according to the petition.
Sheray Felton also sought orders of protection against her husband twice in Will County — in 2011 and 2013. Once she said he threatened to crash a car and kill them both after he accused her of taking a job so she could meet people and divorce him.
Just last May, she said he repeatedly told her she would die.
“He will tell me he will kill me and my son if I try to leave him,” Sheray Felton wrote.
Both cases were eventually dismissed when no one showed up in court, records show.
In July, Joseph Felton was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery after allegedly slapping his wife and pulling her wig off in Steger. She told officers at the time his violence had been on the rise, police said.
That case also was dismissed because of a lack of a complaining witness, court records show.
Contributing: Nick Swedberg