Tagged: East St. Louis

The law enforcement officer who resigned has East St. Louis' police chief in 2009 has his old job back.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports Michael Baxton was sworn in Wednesday in the southwestern Illinois city of about 30,000 residents.

It's been a rocky ride for Baxton. He was police chief in nearby Alorton in October when a state board barred him from law enforcement because of a 1982 robbery conviction.

Illinois State Police are helping authorities in East St. Louis investigate the shooting death of a man who's become the city's 25th killing this year.

The Belleville News-Democrat reports that 31-year-old Timothy Jones of Swansea was shot multiple times Friday night as he sat inside his pickup truck. He died later at a hospital.

There's no word on any arrests or charges in the killing, which brings the city's total of homicides this year past the 24 recorded last year.

A woman accused in the shotgun deaths of two of her children says in a jailhouse letter to a judge she was hearing voices the day of the killings and is "truly sorry."

The Belleville News-Democrat reports 25-year-old Yokeia Smith told St. Clair County Circuit Judge Milton Wharton she believed police were after her even before the Aug. 31 killings.