As she struggled with her boyfriend moments before she was fatally shot on an East St. Louis street in June, Kenyatta Brown asked him, “Why are you doing this to me?,” a prosecutor said Wednesday.
Brown’s boyfriend, Robert “Bobby” E. Hyde Jr., 48, was arrested and indicted on a first-degree murder charge in Brown’s death, according to court records and St. Clair Assistant’s State’s Attorney Levi Carwile.
Illinois State Police said Brown, 42, was found shot to death on June 12 in the 1300 block of 45th Street in East St. Louis. Hyde was arrested on July 29.
St. Clair County Associate Judge Sara L. Rice conducted a detention hearing Wednesday for Hyde and ordered that he be held in the county jail until his trial.
Carwile said Hyde’s ex-girlfriend is a witness in the case. She had seen Hyde driving erratically and she followed him to the street where Hyde had stopped his truck at about 12:50 a.m.
Carwile told Rice that there was a struggle between Hyde and Brown in Hyde’s Dodge Ram pickup truck and that Hyde had pulled Brown out of the truck by her feet. Her purse fell to the street in the struggle and Hyde fired a gunshot toward her feet, Carwile said.
A witness heard another gunshot and Carwile said this shot hit Brown above her left eye. Brown was pronounced deceased on the scene by the St. Clair County Coroner’s Office.
After the shooting, Hyde left the scene but returned a short time later before police arrived in an effort to get his ex-girlfriend to leave before police arrived, Carwile said. Hyde then left the scene again, the prosecutor said.
St. Clair County Assistant Public Defender Satchel Conroy, representing Hyde in the detention hearing, told Rice that one of the witnesses cited by the state is a “jealous ex of my client.”
Conroy also argued that Brown initially had a gun, stating, “You can’t pull guns on people.”
Conroy described the prosecutor’s case as “ far fetched.”
Carwile responded that a witness said Hyde had the firearm prior to the shooting and that at one point Hyde had told Brown, “Don’t make me use my” gun.
Neither Carwile nor Conroy released information to Rice about what caused the altercation between Brown and Hyde.
Conroy unsuccessfully asked Rice to allow Hyde to leave the county jail and order him to wear an electronic monitoring device before his trial. Hyde has worked in the construction business for 30 years and has financially supported his 14-year-old son, Conroy said.
A July Illinois State Police news release said Hyde was from Belleville but an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday Hyde was homeless at the time of his arrest in Caseyville. The indictment states Hyde’s home street address was in East St. Louis. He was being held in the St. Clair County Jail Wednesday.
As part of the state’s revamped criminal justice system that ended cash bail on Sept. 18, judges now conduct detention hearings to determine whether someone should remain in jail until their trial on cases involving serious charges. Rice ruled that Hyde’s detention was necessary to prevent a threat to any person or person in the community.
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