Maurice Wallace charged in the murder of Olamide Adeyooye
Maurice Wallace, a 27 year old man, is being charged with three counts of first degree murder and two counts of concealing a homicide and theft of a motor vehicle in the death of Olamide Adeyooye.
BLOOMINGTON — A 27-year-old man will be charged today with murder in the death of 21-year-old student Olamide Adeyooye.
“Maurice Wallace is today being charged with three counts of first-degree murder, two counts of concealing a homicide and theft of a motor vehicle,” McLean County State’s Attorney Bill Yoder said. “The investigation is ongoing, and additional counts could be forthcoming at a later date.”
According to reports (AP), Olamide Adeyooye, was murdered in her apartment and then driven to Mississippi where her body was later found in a burned chicken coop.
But according to court papers, the woman was killed in her apartment on the day she was last seen. Wallace tried to clean blood from the floor of her apartment, then put her body in her car and left the area, the court papers said.
Adeyooye’s badly burned body was found Oct. 21 in Mississippi when the chicken coop’s owner was cleaning up from a fire four days earlier. She was later identified through dental records.
Authorities said two autopsies failed to pinpoint the cause of death, but they will seek another autopsy and further forensic tests.
The slain woman’s father welcomed the charges. “He should pay for it,” Abiodun Adeyooye said in a telephone interview from his home in Maryland.
Suspect was banned from campus
In an unusual move, Illinois State University officials considered the man named as a suspect in Olamide Adeyooye’s death to be a threat and banned him from campus two months before she died.
Police officers handed a letter Aug. 17 to Maurice L. Wallace, 27, who was not an ISU student, that said he was not welcome on campus.
The letter from Helen Mamarchev, vice president of student affairs, followed reports in the last five years that Wallace was kicked out of several buildings, banned from specific areas of campus and accused of theft and harassment on separate occasions. ‘
“I am taking this action based on serious allegations pending against you that suggest that your presence on this campus constitutes a threat to the members of the Illinois State University community,” Mamarchev’s letter says.
The letter adds if Wallace is found on ISU property, he’d be “subject to arrest for criminal trespass.” No such charge has been filed against Wallace since the letter was written.
The AP also added that Wallace briefly worked at the university but was banned from campus for inappropriate conduct.
Wallace, who worked briefly at the university as a food service worker several years ago, was banned from the campus in August, university spokesman Jay Groves said.
Wallace allegedly made inappropriate sexual comments to students and employees, Groves said. He was banned from the campus recreation center in 2001 because of similar incidents.
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Police had named Wallace as a suspect last month in Adeyooye’s disappearance and death. Her body was found Oct. 21 in Mississippi when the chicken coop’s owner was cleaning up rubble from a fire four days earlier. She was later identified through dental records.
Wallace, who lived in the same block as Adeyooye, has been in custody since Oct. 20, when he was arrested at an Atlanta shopping center on an unrelated warrant from Normal. Adeyooye’s car was found abandoned in Atlanta on Oct. 30. Wallace waived extradition from Georgia and has been held in the McLean County Jail in lieu of $540,000 bond on the unrelated theft, aggravated battery and disorderly conduct charges.
ISU officials say they will confer Adeyooye’s degree and present it to her parents.