A jury convicted a Dolton, Illinois man Thursday in connection with a double slaying last year at the Renaissance Towers in Hammond.
Marvin “Geno” Clark, 33, was convicted of four counts of murder and three counts of burglary, plus four gun enhancements. Two of the murder counts were while committing a burglary.
His sentencing is April 7.
The victims — Gary Shanklin, 23, of East Chicago, and Montelle “Monty” Lang, 29, of Chicago — were found shot to death at the bottom of a stairwell. Hammond Police were called around 3:30 a.m. May 18 to the apartments on the 500 block of Michigan Street.
Authorities alleged co-defendant Anthony Smothers showed up at his ex-girlfriend Jailen Perry’s apartment with Clark and co-defendant Daniel “Danny” Harmon from an Illinois bar.
Police learned Smothers was on the phone with the woman when Lang, her new boyfriend, had choked her a week earlier in front of at least one of their kids.
Shanklin was friends with Lang — they stopped over after a party.
When Perry didn’t let the trio in, the men took off a screen and climbed through a living room window. Lang and Shanklin started arguing with them.
Perry told police Smothers was heavily drunk. Smothers pulled a gun and pointed it at her. The two men with Smothers stopped Shanklin and Lang from leaving.
He and Perry got into a physical confrontation. Smothers handed the gun to Harmon so he could freely attack Perry. She led Smothers outside the apartment trying to “defuse” the confrontation just before the shooting.
She told the victims to go out her front door while she talked with Smothers. He followed her outside her unit as they argued by the building’s east side. The woman heard shots. The two men with him, then Smothers fled.
“He’s dead,” Harmon said while leaving.
In closing statements Thursday, Deputy Prosecutor Milana Petersen said Clark showed up in a ski mask with Smothers and Harmon.
“He knew there would be a fight,” she said.
Perry identified Clark as one of the men there, Petersen said. Under a legal concept known as accomplice liability, she told jurors they didn’t need to technically prove who shot whom.
Both victims were unarmed.
Defense lawyer John Cantrell disputed Perry’s credibility, who testified Tuesday.
Police had no proof that she was on a Facetime call with Smothers as he was headed over on May 18, he argued. They had five missed phone calls on her cell.
Initially, she told police she didn’t see Clark with a gun. Then, in court, she testified he had two guns.
She was trying to cover for Smothers, her children’s father, or herself, he alleged.
The apartment video was cut off in 15-second “snippets” here and there, he said. The three men had “no plan” to kill Lang and Shanklin.
There was no evidence they tried to break into her apartment through the window screen as there was no DNA or obvious damage from the outside, he said.
The only person who had a feasible motive was Smothers, Cantrell said.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/03/06/dolton-man-convicted-in-hammond-apartment-double-slaying/
