A trial opened Monday for a man charged in connection with a shooting that left two men dead at a Hammond apartment.
Marvin “Geno” Clark, 33, of Dolton, Illinois, is charged with four counts of murder and three counts of burglary. Two of those murder counts are while committing a burglary.
The victims — Gary Shanklin, 23, of East Chicago, and Montelle “Monty” Lang, 29, of Chicago — were found shot to death at the bottom of a stairwell. Hammond Police were called around 3:30 a.m. May 18 to the Renaissance Towers on the 500 block of Michigan Street.
A woman alleged Anthoney “Mainski” Smothers — one of Clark’s co-defendants and her former boyfriend — was heavily drunk and arguing elsewhere with her when she heard gunshots.
Police learned Smothers was on the phone with the woman when Lang, her new boyfriend, had choked her a week earlier in front of at least one of their kids.
On the night of the murders, Smothers called the woman, appearing drunk, saying he would come over. He showed up with Clark and co-defendant Daniel “Danny” Harmon.
Shanklin was friends with Lang — they stopped over after a party.
When Smothers’ ex-girlfriend didn’t let them in, the men took off a screen and they climbed through a living room window. Lang and Shanklin started arguing with them.
The woman told the victims to go out her front door while she talked with Smothers. He followed the woman outside her unit as they argued by the building’s east side. The woman heard shots. The two men with him, then Smothers fled.
“He’s dead,” Harmon said while leaving.
In opening statements Monday, Deputy Prosecutor Brad Carter argued the trio — Smothers, Clark and Harmon — had a plan to make sure the other men didn’t escape.
Their deaths were a “cold-hearted” and a “deliberate execution,” he said.
That night, Smothers called his ex-girlfriend several times, looking to get into a confrontation with Lang, Carter said. Clark was there in the same clothes from the bar, now in a ski mask.
When they arrived, the men split up.
Carter acknowledged there was no direct camera footage of the shooting.
A video camera outside the apartments captured a license plate as the vehicle arrived. Cell phone location data and license plate readers also put the men at the scene, he said.
The victims were hit by a “barrage of bullets,” with Lang shot twice in the head and abdomen, while Shanklin was shot nine times. Ballistics tests showed two guns were used, indicating two potential shooters.
Defense lawyer John Cantrell argued his client, Clark, wasn’t there.
That night, Smothers took the other two men from a bar to his ex-girlfriend’s apartment and they fought, which was typical for their volatile relationship, he told jurors.
Clark didn’t “have a dog in the fight” and left before the shooting.
He argued the men didn’t climb through the window, because no DNA was found or “pry marks.”
Instead, the men knocked on the apartment door and the woman stepped outside in the hallway, closing the door behind her. When the former couple got into a physical fight, Clark left, the lawyer said.
He had “no idea” who shot the men.
Deputy Prosecutor Milana Petersen played a couple of 911 calls.
Hammond Police Officer Elias Guido testified that four young children were huddled together in the woman’s apartment bedroom about seven feet from the two bodies in the hallway. Carter previously said three were the woman’s children.
“I’m scared,” one child said, on bodycam footage, “…of the mouse.”
“Don’t worry,” the officer said. “We’re gonna take care of the mouse for you.”
Investigators tagged a silver Chevrolet SUV in the parking lot right before the shooting. They traced it to Harmon’s relative.
He told police the three were drinking at a Burnham, Illinois, bar, the Brown Jug, that evening. They went to the ex-girlfriend’s apartment. Harmon claimed he wasn’t driving, didn’t know what was going to happen and was outside when the shooting happened.
Investigators doubted his story.
The night of the murders, Smothers pulled a gun and pointed it at the woman. The two men with Smothers stopped Shanklin and Lang from leaving.
Smothers handed the gun to Harmon so he could freely attack the woman. She led Smothers outside the apartment trying to “defuse” the confrontation just before the shooting.
Shanklin was acquitted in January 2025 of the Oct. 13, 2021, deaths of Nalisha D. Martin, 43, of Hammond, and Christopher Burks, 52, of Chicago. The case was unrelated to his death.
Clark’s two co-defendants’ cases are pending. Harmon’s next hearing is Wednesday, while Smothers’ next hearing is March 12.
Post-Tribune archives contributed.