A 48-year-old man charged with murder after gunning down a successful Chicago trader inside the luxury high-rise apartment building where they both lived was ordered held Friday on $1 million bond.
Reggie Daniel, 48, faces one felony count of first-degree murder, Chicago police announced early Friday.
Daniel, who is confined to a wheelchair, is accused of killing Darrin Joss, 45, with gunshots to the head and chest in a crowded fitness room of the high-rise in the 500 block of S. Kinzie Street about 7 p.m. Wednesday. He then fled the scene.
Joss, who was working out on a treadmill at the time, was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Police said the shooting was sparked by a “verbal altercation” between the two. Stunned neighbors in the River West apartment building said the two had issues for some time.
“I know they had a tense relationship going on about a year now,” Adam Ruetz, who lives in the high-rise, told NBC 5.
Residents and friends told NBC 5 the tense relationship stemmed from Daniel repeatedly flirting with Joss’s live-in girlfriend. But no one imagined it would end in a cold-blooded murder.
“I was actually on the amenities floor five minutes before and said hi to the shooter,” one resident told NBC 5. “He seemed happy, he seemed normal.”
Another resident, Mike Salazar, says he was not surprised to hear the altercation started over a woman, because he says Daniel would often flirt with his own wife. Daniel pushed it far past comfort with aggressive remarks to his wife on different occasions, Salazar said, such as "come get me when you're done with him."
"It doesn't shock me one bit," Salazar said.
Joss was a graduate of the University of Iowa and had lived in Chicago since graduation. His family says he enjoyed going to the gym and watching sports, including the Hawkeyes and the Cubs. He owned two units in the building, one to live in and the other for work, with dreams of working at the Chicago Board of Trade.
"He was just the first one to help someone if they were down," his father Kenneth Joss told NBC 5.
"[This is] the worst nightmare you could ever experience," he said.
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Daniel is due in Cook County bond court Friday.
