Courtney Horton, a 32-year-old African American man, was killed on June 10, 2020, in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. Horton was found in a hallway of a building in the 1300 block of North Hudson Avenue with multiple gunshot wounds to the thigh, abdomen, chest, wrist and bicep and was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Security guards at the Marshall Field Garden Apartments overheard Horton telling a friend, 28-year-old Rotonio Esco, that Esco owed him money shortly before the shooting. Prosecutors say the two left the main security building just before 2 a.m., returned about 10 minutes later, and that shots were then fired. Esco was seen leaving the complex with blood stains on his gray sweatpants, dropped his cell phone, ID and a gun while fleeing, and was later detained after breaking into a nearby apartment and hiding on a roof. Officers recovered a 9mm cartridge and $1,200 soaked in blood near his waistband; shell casings at the scene were later matched to the gun Esco allegedly discarded.

Esco was charged with first-degree murder and ordered held without bail. What did Horton’s friends or neighbors know about the dispute over money that preceded the shooting?