CHICAGO—A Fuller Park man has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2011 slaying of a South Side barbecue cook, police said.
Michael Pryor, 21, of the 200 block of West Swann Street, was charged Saturday for allegedly killing Joshua Hudgins, 34, of the 4900 block of South Champlain Avenue, two years ago.
Hudgins, a father of three and stepfather to several others, was fatally shot July 12, 2011, while taking a cigarette break outside Alice’s Bar-B-Q, 65 E. 43rd St., CBS Chicago reported at the time.
On the night he was killed, Hudgins, a 17-year-employee of Alice’s, was working as “pitmaster” in the kitchen, CBS reported. Hudgins stepped outside about 9 p.m. and chatted with an old friend, Henry Ramsey.
Ramsey had briefly stepped away when as many as nine shots were fired, CBS reported.
“Naturally, I go down,” Ramsey told CBS Chicago. “I hit the ground myself and I’m looking to see where these shots are coming from. And when I looked this way, he was … he’s laying here, man. And I couldn’t help him and it hurt. … I don’t like to talk about because he was a friend of mine.”
Hudgins was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was later pronounced dead, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
Police said Hudgins was not the intended target.
Pryor is slated to appear in bond court Saturday.
