MURPHYSBORO – Jackson County State’s Attorney Joseph Cervantez says a southeast Missouri man was found guilty of first-degree murder Monday in the November 2019 death of Keon Cooper in Carbondale

Cervantez says 25-year-old Tyren Jawan Johnson of Sikeston was found guilty following a jury trial in Jackson County. Johnson faces a sentence of between 45 years and natural life in the Illinois Department of Correction for Cooper’s murder.

In a jury trial lasting more than a week, Cervantez presented evidence to a crowded courtroom that on Nov. 3, 2019, Carbondale police were dispatched to the 500 block of South Illinois Avenue for a complaint of shots fired. Keon Cooper was transported by ambulance to Memorial Hospital of Carbondale where he was pronounced dead from multiple gunshot wounds. In just hours, investigators with the Carbondale Police Department identified the shooters as 21-year-old Tyren Johnson and 24-year-old Olando Sheron, both of Sikeston.

The Carbondale Police Department obtained arrest warrants for both Johnson and Sheron. On Nov. 7, 2019, Johnson was arrested on an Illinois warrant by the Sikeston Department of Public Safety. Olando Sheron evaded law enforcement for nearly two years until he was arrested after a dangerous car chase in Gardena, CA. He was charged and found guilty of first-degree murder on Friday, Dec. 9, 2022, by a Jackson County, IL jury. Cervantez led the prosecution of Johnson and after securing a guilty verdict on Oct. 23, 2023,

The investigation was led by the Carbondale Police Department and assisted by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, Southern Illinois University Department of Public Safety, Sikeston Department of Public Safety, and the US Marshal’s Service among others.