A Lake County jury found Tracy Davis Jr., 36, guilty Tuesday of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in connection with a 2018 home invasion in Zion that left Kaleah Beville dead and two others wounded. Jurors returned their verdict around 5:25 p.m. after closing arguments concluded the same day, convicting Davis as the accomplice of Zavian Wells, who was found guilty in the same case back in 2024.
The shooting happened on February 16, 2018, in the 2800 block of Edina Boulevard in Zion, according to the Lake and McHenry County Scanner. Police found one man and two women, ages 24 to 43, shot inside the home. Beville, 36, of Zion, was shot multiple times and airlifted to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, where she later died; the other two victims were also transported to the same hospital.
Prosecutors told jurors the attack was set in motion after a male resident of the home was seen in a Snapchat video with cash he’d received after cashing a settlement check. According to prosecutors, Davis and others conspired to rob that resident once they saw the footage. The day before the home invasion, suspects including Davis tried to rob the same victim but only got away with his car and car keys, prosecutor Lauren Kalcheim Rothenberg said.
How Investigators Tied Davis to the Scene
On the night of the shooting, prosecutors said Davis drove a car to the home with at least two other people inside, and two men entered the home looking for cash. One of those two men shot all three victims as the pair was leaving, according to Rothenberg. Cellphone records placed Davis in the same vicinity as Wells during the home invasion and tracked his movements to Round Lake Beach, where the gun used in the shooting was later recovered.
Investigators said Davis wasn’t arrested until they uncovered a recorded jailhouse call that placed him at the scene. Rothenberg told the court that Davis had an incriminating phone call with an Illinois Department of Corrections inmate, and Illinois Department of Corrections records helped identify Davis as the person who took that call — one he received, according to prosecutors, while the home invasion was underway. Davis could reportedly be heard speaking with Wells in the background of the recording, Rothenberg said.
That break came years after the case first stalled. The Zion Police Department said in 2023 that corroborative evidence needed to prosecute additional suspects was difficult to obtain, but detectives persisted and eventually developed information supporting the indictment of a second offender. A grand jury indicted Davis on five counts of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder in January 2023, and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest, police said. Detectives located him living in a Minneapolis suburb; he was not an Illinois resident at the time, according to prosecutors’ petition, and was later extradited from Michigan and booked into the Lake County Jail in February 2023.
A Disputed Detail About the Victim
Beville’s sister has pushed back on how the case has been characterized in coverage, telling WGN-TV that it was not Beville who received any settlement or posted about money online. “She didn’t win a settlement, she wasn’t flashing money on social media, she wasn’t even a person who used social media a lot,” Anderson said, according to the station. Prosecutors have consistently said the social-media video and settlement cash belonged to a male resident of the home, not Beville herself, a distinction also reflected in earlier Chicago Tribune reporting on the case.
Years-Long Prosecution Finally Reaches a Verdict
Davis’s trial, which began with jury selection on November 2 before Lake County Judge Ari Fisz, lasted seven court days and had been postponed several times since 2024. Lauren Kalcheim Rothenberg prosecuted the case alongside Lake County Assistant State’s Attorneys Scott Hoffert and Tyler Dyson, while James Schwarzbach and Scott Spaulding represented Davis. A cyber analyst testified about the contents of Wells’ cellphone, which investigators said helped identify Davis as a suspect in 2023 after they flagged a phone number believed to be tied to the murder and connected it back to him.
Zion Police Chief Eric Barden said the verdict followed years of work by police, prosecutors and law-enforcement partners, and that Davis actively participated in planning and carrying out the home invasion that killed Beville and gravely wounded two others. Barden said the department’s thoughts remain with the Beville family and the surviving victims, and that the verdict reinforces the department’s commitment to justice.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said law-enforcement partners and prosecutors persisted in identifying who had planned the attack alongside Wells, crediting the investigation with helping secure justice for the victims. Rinehart said his office would continue supporting those affected and would seek to keep Davis out of the community for decades, adding that he had stood with Kaleah’s family and loved ones after Wells’ earlier sentencing.
What Comes Next for Davis — and What Happened to His Co-Defendant
Jurors polled after the verdict affirmed their finding that Davis was guilty and that he was armed with a firearm during the home invasion. Judge Fisz entered judgment on the verdict and ordered a presentence investigation. Davis remains held at the Lake County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court on December 3 for a status hearing on post-trial motions and the presentence report. Prosecutors said he faces a minimum of 35 years and a maximum of 120 years in prison.
Wells, arrested in Round Lake Beach 10 days after the home invasion, was tried before Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti and convicted of murder and attempted murder in August 2024. He was sentenced in January 2025 to 50 years for first-degree murder plus 20 and 12 years on the two attempted-murder counts, with two of those terms served consecutively for a combined 70 years, according to the Scanner’s earlier reporting. The Zion Police Department has said in the past that other possible participants in the home invasion had not been charged, and their status was not immediately known.
