Lemont Man Convicted in Romeoville Road Rage Death

A jury found a Lemont man guilty of second-degree murder in the road-rage death of a Romeoville senior citizen late Monday night.

Christopher Yeoman, 41, of the 300 block of Short Street, was also convicted of aggravated battery to a senior citizen and aggravated battery in the death of 63-year-old Frank Egas.
 
In what Will County State's Attorney spokesman Chuck Pelkie called "a clear case of road rage," Yeoman got out of his minivan and violently punched Egas in the head at a stop light on 135th Street near Route 53 in Romeoville in June 2011.

Egas fell to the ground, while Yeoman fled the scene, with his wife at the wheel of their minivan.

Yeoman testified that he had honked his horn at Egans, who was stopped ahead of him on 135th Street. He also claimed that Egas swerved to prevent him from passing and that he punched Egas in "self-defense" after both men got out of their vehicles.

Prosecutors, however, maintained that Egas was simply standing by his vehicle and had "made no aggressive gesture" when Yeoman rushed toward him and punched him once. 

According to Pelkie, Yeoman also admitted that he was angered by Egas' driving and that he made no attempt to avoid Egas by turning his minivan onto on of several side streets or into a parking lot.

Romeoville police and paramedics arrived to find Egas on the pavement but Yeoman had reportedly taken off. He was tracked down at a relative's home in Lemont, police said.

Initially, Yeoman was charged only with misdemeanor battery. However, Egas' conditioned deteriorated in the months following the incident, and he died in September 2011 at a Lake County nursing home. 

In June 2012, a year after the incident, Yeoman was arraigned on a second-degree murder charge.

“Christopher Yeoman sucker punched Mr. Egas out of sheer anger and now a senior citizen is dead, the victim of irrational violence," State's Attorney James Glasgow said in a statement. “My prosecutors left no doubt in the minds of jurors that this was a murder resulting from a senseless incident of road rage and not a case of self-defense.”

According to his obituary, Egas "immigrated from Ecuador to the United States when he was 9 years old. He earned his naturalization by volunteering to serve in the US Army in the Vietnam War."

Yeoman faces between three and 20 years n prison when he is sentenced April 4.