Lavell Mathis, 25, was shot and killed on November 8, 2020, while walking through a vacant lot in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side. He suffered gunshot wounds to his abdomen and armpit, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, and was pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiner ruled his death a homicide.

Authorities charged 20-year-old Alex Thomas of South Austin with first-degree murder in connection with Mathis’s death. Investigators say surveillance footage showed Thomas following Mathis from a fast food parking lot and shooting him multiple times with a .40-caliber handgun. Detectives reportedly recovered Mathis’s watch in Thomas’s car, found social media photos placing Thomas in the area before the shooting, and seized a sweatshirt from Thomas’s home that tested positive for gunshot residue. Thomas was held without bail pending trial; prosecutors suggested Thomas’s gang affiliation might have been a factor, though no explicit motive was announced.

Did anyone in the Austin area see Mathis or the parking lot footage that night, or have information about movements around that vacant lot?