WAYNE COUNTY, IL — When a 40-year-old Kentucky man is arraigned Tuesday in Wayne County Court he’ll be formally charged with more than the one count first degree murder issued for his arrest last month in connection with the shooting death of Wayne County Sheriff’s Deputy Sean Riley. Since Ray E. Tate, Jr.’s December arrest, Wayne County prosecutors have secured a true bill of indictment charging Tate with 38 felony charges – 36 of which are a variation of the first degree murder statute; while the other two charges are Class X felony aggravated vehicle hijacking and Class 2 being a felon in possession of a firearm.

According to Illinois State Police, Deputy Riley was called for a “motorist assist” on Interstate 64. Troopers say it was called in by a passerby. Following a brief encounter with Tate, Deputy Riley requested emergency assistance. When other law enforcement officers arrived, they say they found Deputy Riley’s body and his cruiser was gone. Authorities say Tate fled in Deputy Riley’s cruiser before hijacking a semi-truck driver who he had drive him to Missouri. Tate is accused of committing other crimes in Missouri, before returning to Illinois. He was taken into custody after a hostage situation in Clinton County. He was transported to the Clinton County Jail where Wayne County authorities set his bail at $5 million.

Missouri authorities have charged him with 14 various crimes stemming from his brief time that day in their state. Additional Illinois charges could also be filed in Clinton County.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>