Mia Clayton was on her way to an appointment when she missed a call from her brother, Lenier, minutes before he was shot and killed in an apparent act of road rage Monday evening on Interstate 80 in New Lenox.
Clayton texted him to stop by for a visit but never received a response. Shortly after she sent the message, an Illinois state police trooper was at her door to tell Clayton her brother was killed.
"I was stunned," Clayton, 42, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I did not immediately cry...But I was in disbelief that we were being told not only my brother was dead but that someone murdered him, and that's what makes it so much harder."
Meanwhile, on Wednesday morning, police announced first-degree murder and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon charges for Chicago resident Phillip E. Rogers, 45, who was taken into custody shortly after the shooting.
State troopers responded to the I-80 westbound entrance to I-355 around 5:30 p.m. Monday for a call of a shooting on the expressway and found 30-year-old Lenier Clayton, who was taken to a nearby hospital with “life-threatening injuries,” Illinois state police said. He later was pronounced dead.
State troopers told Mia Clayton that the shooting appears to be an act of road rage. Lenier Clayton's car was totaled and it appears he was ran off the road, according to his sister.
She says justice for her brother is "more than important."
"If justice — for whatever reason — is not to be served, it would [be] twice, three times the blow," Mia Clayton said. "[The gunman] had no right to do what he did."
Lenier Clayton, was described by his sister as "someone everybody loved." He was the youngest of three who worked at an auto auction shop in Markham.
"He loved his family deeply, he was kindhearted [and] he was funny," Mia Clayton said. "He was just a good guy that didn’t deserve this."
One of Mia Clayton's favorite memories of her brother was the time they spent at a Mojo Brookzz comedy show they attended a week earlier.
The two almost didn’t go because Mia Clayton was sick in the hospital, but the night of the show was the last time she saw her brother.
After he made it home, Lenier Clayton sent a text to his sister saying: "I love you, sissy. I'm glad we got to go do that. That was fun."
"We didn’t know what was to come, but I'm very glad we got to do that recently," Mia Clayton said.
Lenier Clayton's "always genuine" smile stood out to his sister, and he often was told he was a "spitting image" of his father, who died suddenly in 2018.
Lenier, was "not shy," said his sister, who added he loved dancing and music, specifically hip-hop, his sister said. His favorite artist was Memphis-born rapper Key Glock.
"He could catch a beat to anything," Mia Clayton said. "He really was the life of the party, whether it was a wedding or a cousins trip to Florida."
"People really did gravitate toward him."
A GoFundMe page was created to help Lenier Clayton's family with funeral costs. The fundraiser raised more than $17,000 of it's $25,000 as of Wednesday morning.
