Richton Park Son Charged After Fatally Shooting Mother and Her Boyfriend Inside Apartment

RICH­TON PARK, Ill. — A heartbreak­ing family tragedy unfolded Sat­urday evening when 21-year-old Javonte T. Mor­ris was charg­ed with two counts of first-degree mur­der for allegedly fatally shoot­ing his own moth­er, 38-year-old Nivia Phil­lips, and her part­ner, 45-year-old Mar­cus Jones, inside their apart­ment on Jackson Court. Mor­ris now sits in the Cook Coun­ty Jail await­ing his next court date on Jan. 21, 2026.

Offi­cers respon­ded to reports of shots fired in the 22500 block of Jack­son Court just before 6:40 p.m. on Dec. 27 and found both adults unrespon­sive inside the home. They were pro­nounced dead at the scene.

In the days lead­ing up to the shoot­ing, court doc­u­ments show ris­ing tensions between Mor­ris and his moth­er over hous­ing. Phil­lips had told a cous­in that her son was “talk­ing about shoot­ing” her dur­ing argu­ments, and dur­ing a lat­er phone call the cous­in heard Mor­ris threat­en her life and warn that a shoot­out would take place if police showed up.

The cous­in called 911 at 6:35 p.m. Sat­ur­day after hear­ing a firearm being racked in the back­ground. Mere min­utes lat­er, Mor­ris him­self called 911 to report a shoot­ing at the apart­ment but did not iden­ti­fy him­self as the alleged perpe­tra­tor. Police dis­patched imme­di­ate­ly and locat­ed Mor­ris behind a near­by garage, tak­ing him into cus­tody with­out fur­ther inci­dent roughly six min­utes after that 911 call.

Inside the apart­ment, offi­cers found a young child — lat­er iden­ti­fied as Mor­ris’ four-year-old daugh­ter — hid­ing near her toys under a table. She was phys­i­cal­ly unharmed but told inves­ti­ga­tors she saw her father shoot Phil­lips and Jones dur­ing an argu­ment. The child recalled pull­ing a blan­ket off her grand­moth­er to see her bleed­ing and describ­ing Jones strug­gling to breathe and bleed­ing from his mouth.

Foren­sic inves­ti­ga­tors recov­ered five shell cas­ings from a bed­room and a .380-caliber Smith & Wesson hand­gun from the liv­ing room, along with bul­lets from both victims. These pieces of evi­dence were doc­u­ment­ed in court papers as part of the pros­e­cu­tion’s case against Mor­ris.

Neighbors in the quiet sub­ur­ban com­mu­ni­ty of Rich­ton Park said they were shocked by the vio­lence, describ­ing the neigh­bor­hood as calm and famil­iar. Many expressed grief and hoped for jus­tice as the case moves for­ward.

Cook Coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors empha­sized the grav­i­ty of the case as Mor­ris awaits his next court appear­ance in ear­ly 2026. In the mean­time, fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends of the victims are left grap­pling with a los­ing blow that has rocked the com­mu­ni­ty.