Scratch on Car Ends With One Man Dead

Two West Side men -- one of them a five-time felon -- beat a third man to death last month in their Garfield Park neighborhood after a minor traffic collision left a scratch on the suspects' vehicle, prosecutors alleged in court on Wednesday.

Edward Brown, 35, and Steven Fox, 26, are each charged with murder in the death of 46-year-old Larry Brown.  In court Wednesday, Cook County Judge James Brown set bond at $1 million for Edward Brown and $750,000 for Fox.

According to prosecutors, the victim was returning home in his car about 3:30 a.m. on June 17 when he drove through an alley and scraped against a car in which the other two men were riding.  Larry Brown did not realize there had been an accident and continued to his home in the 600 block of North Spaulding Avenue.

Edward Brown and Fox followed the car into the driveway, started yelling at Larry Brown and then physically attacked him, said
Cook County State's Attorney's office spokesman Andy Conklin, citing court records. They beat him in the head and body, and the commotion was enough to wake the victim's parents who were sleeping in the house.

Larry Brown's father came outside and begged them to stop beating his son, but the beating continued until Larry Brown lost consciousness and his attackers drove away, court records indicate. Both men were arrested and were positively identified by the victim's father.

Larry Brown was taken to a hospital, where he regained consciousness long enough to identify his attackers, whom he knew from the neighborhood, prosecutors allege. He later fell into a coma until his death on July 7. An autopsy showed he died from head trauma and the death was ruled a homicide, court records show.

A preliminary hearing was set for Aug. 9 for Brown and Fox. Brown was on parole from a drug conviction at the time of the attack, one of his five felony drug convictions, Conklin said.