Peoria County State's Attorney Jodi Hoos has officially ruled that a Peoria police officer was legally justified in fatally shooting 41-year-old Cortez White outside a downtown hotel in May, closing the books on a case that began with an abduction at the airport and ended with the killing of 42-year-old Ashley Stenson in front of responding officers. Hoos announced on Wednesday that the officer will face no criminal charges.
The State's Attorney's findings, detailed by WCBU, confirm that an autopsy from the Peoria County Coroner's Office determined Stenson was shot five times, including twice in the head and once in the chest, before she was pronounced dead at OSF Healthcare Saint Francis Medical Center. The ruling arrives more than three months after the May 8 shooting, following a review process required whenever an Illinois officer uses deadly force.
An Abduction That Began at the Airport
According to WMBD, investigative summaries show White abducted Stenson directly from the parking lot at General Wayne A. Downing Peoria International Airport moments after she landed from Atlanta, forcing her into his pickup truck while her cousin, who had come to pick her up, watched and then followed the vehicle. Stenson and White had previously dated but had reportedly been broken up for over a year, per the seed reporting from Charlotte Alerts News. She had traveled to Peoria for a wedding.
State investigative records cited by the same WMBD report indicate White, who lived in St. Louis, Missouri, had learned of Stenson's travel plans by monitoring a Facebook post in which she announced her weekend trip. While trapped inside the truck, Stenson continually texted family members warning that White was threatening to kill her, sending real-time location updates that let relatives call 911 at approximately 6:45 p.m. that evening.
Gunfire Outside the Four Points by Sheraton
Those text messages led police directly to the scene in downtown Peoria within minutes. The report notes that as a uniformed officer stepped out of a marked squad car outside the Four Points by Sheraton hotel on Hamilton Boulevard and asked, “Are you Ashley? Are you Cortez? Keep your hands up,” White produced a Taurus 9mm handgun and opened fire on Stenson. The officer then returned fire, and the entire encounter was captured on both the officer's body-worn camera and the squad car's dashcam, footage that became central evidence in the state investigation.
Following the exchange of gunfire, White was transported to OSF Healthcare Saint Francis Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead during surgery at 8:26 p.m. that night, according to a report from SubX News. Under Illinois law, every fatal officer-involved shooting must be independently investigated by the Illinois State Police before the findings are handed to the local State's Attorney's Office for a criminal review — a mandatory process that explains why it took more than three months to reach Wednesday's determination.
A Case That Reflects a Wider Pattern
The Peoria County State's Attorney's Office also released a weekly criminal justice snapshot in late August showing that out of 115 criminal charges filed locally in a single week, 14 involved battery, with five specifically charged as domestic battery — a statistic that underscores how frequently local prosecutors handle cases rooted in intimate partner violence. Stenson's case, however, escalated far beyond a typical domestic incident, moving from a social-media-fueled stalking pattern to an abduction and, ultimately, a fatal police confrontation in broad daylight in the heart of downtown Peoria.
With the criminal review of the officer's conduct now closed, the case stands as a stark example of how quickly digital surveillance by an abuser can escalate into physical danger, and how a victim's own real-time reporting to family helped bring police to the scene within minutes of her abduction.
