Champaign man charged with attempted murder in hotel robbery

URBANA — A Champaign man is charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting and robbing a man in a Champaign hotel room earlier this year.

Champaign County Judge Brett Olmstead ruled Wednesday that Kejuan D. McFarland, 26, must await trial in jail after being charged with attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and armed robbery.

Champaign police were called to the Days Inn, 914 W. Bloomington Road, around 11:30 p.m. on June 6 for a reported shooting, Champaign County Prosecutor Julia Rietz said. At the scene, officers found a man who had been shot in the abdomen and had him taken to a local hospital.

The man who rented the room where the shooting occurred told police that he and his friend, the victim, were out together when they were joined by two women and another man. The group eventually left the hotel room and some of them went to a nearby liquor store.

The two women later told police that the third man they had brought with them was McFarland. The man who had rented the room and the victim said they did not know McFarland. Regardless, the two friends quickly returned to the room with alcohol they had purchased at the store.

One of the women said she was outside the hotel talking on the phone when she noticed McFarland outside ripping a hoodie to cover his face, Rietz said. She then heard gunshots coming from inside the hotel and saw McFarland running out of the building.

When questioned after the operation, the victim told police that a man he could not identify entered the room with his face covered, stole a backpack full of money, pointed a gun at the victim’s head and pulled the trigger. When the gun failed to fire, the man cocked it again and shot him in the chest.

The woman who allegedly saw McFarland outside the hotel after the shooting also told police he sent her a message telling her to leave or she would be next, Rietz said. Surveillance video allegedly showed McFarland and the four other individuals in the area of the hotel before the shooting.

Police had already issued a warrant for McFarland’s arrest in an unrelated matter. He was arrested Sunday after Urbana police conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle he was in.

In asking that McFarland be kept in jail, Rietz pointed out that the two women who knew McFarland identified him as being at the hotel that night, that surveillance footage captured him in the area and that an eyewitness placed him entering and leaving the room where the shooting occurred.

Rietz also argued that McFarland would not comply with release conditions since he was sentenced in 2018 to three years in prison after violating his probation for a 2016 robbery conviction involving a BB gun, and pleaded guilty to criminal sexual abuse in a separate case in 2017.

Arguing for McFarland’s parole, public defender Chris Tichenor noted that no witnesses saw his client with a gun, that another woman said she was elsewhere with McFarland that night and that police never located a gun or stolen property on McFarland.

McFarland faces six to 30 years in prison if convicted of any of the Class X felony counts. He is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing in October.