October 5, 2026 | By: Patrick Hamlin

This story is part of a collaborative project between Project: Cold Case and the University of North Florida’s Applied Journalism class.

Novell Woods got the nickname “The Cradle King” as a member of the Joliet Central High School state championship wrestling team in the mid-1980s. His sister Felicia remembers how quickly he could end a match with his skills. “Once he got you in a hold, it was over,” she said.

Novell had a big family. Felicia and Novell lived with another sister, Jada, and they had many other stepsiblings and half siblings in the Joliet, Illinois, area and around the country. One of their half-brother that lived in Rhode Island was Tony Woods who was only 5 years old when Novell was shot and killed in Joliet. It was October of 1986, and Novell was 20.

In the decades that have passed, nobody has been charged or arrested in his case. But the Woods family hasn’t forgotten Novell.

Tony never felt like he got the full story from his family, since he was so young when everything happened. He remembers a trip to Joliet as a young child for Novell’s funeral but didn’t discover the circumstances and details of the murder until much later in his life. Tony remembers not hearing many details from his family and believed that his dad feared gang-related retaliation towards the family members who stayed in the Joliet area. As an adult, Tony felt he had to seek the truth himself or at least try to find more answers about his brother.

In late 2022, Tony filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and got in contact with Fred Hayes, the first officer on the scene the night Novell was killed. Hayes has remained with the police force in the area and is currently the police chief of Elwood, a nearby suburb of Joliet.

Hayes sent Tony the full police report, witness statements, death report and autopsy, but admitted he couldn’t remember some of the heavily redacted details in the decades that have passed. However, it was enough to paint a picture of what occurred on that evening in 1986.

These documents show that a handful of people, including Novell, were congregating in an alley between Mississippi Avenue and Iowa Avenue in Joliet around 9:30 pm on October 12, 1986. When they split up, Novell left with a friend and headed west towards Mississippi Avenue. Shortly after, shots rang out and both men fell to the ground. When a second round of shots rang out, Novell’s friend got up and ran towards a nearby alley. He ran a lap around the block and, when he came back around, a handful of people were standing around Novell’s body on the sidewalk.

That was the story the police reported, and the stated motive was gang violence. It was near Chicago in the 1980s, and Joliet had roads in town that were locally known as dividing lines between gang territories. But Novell was never in a gang, according to his siblings. Some of his stepsiblings were involved in gang activity, though, and that night Novell paid the ultimate consequence. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Felicia remembers spending the day of Oct. 12 with Novell and other family members at the local laundromat. They stayed from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Felicia said she will never forget how kind and gentle Novell was with the young children there that day. She also remembers how, as a personal rule, he always sought to treat people with respect, even people he didn’t know.

“If he saw someone not being treated right, he would step in,” Felicia said. “No matter who it was.”

Joliet was known for being a city with heavy gang activity and lots of violence in the 1980s, but Felicia remembers how Novell rarely got in trouble. They lived close to the dividing line between gang territories in Joliet, and yet Novell was mostly able to walk freely around town. He even had a girlfriend on the other side of town whom he risked his life seeing. But when gang members who didn’t know him would see him, sometimes they would shoot in the air near him so he would know to get back to the other side of town.

Derrick Foster is another half-sibling who still lives in Joliet and remembers seeing Novell and Felicia during holidays as a kid.

“I didn’t live with them, but I still grew up with them and saw them at holidays and cookouts,” he said. “I started to get closer with Novell shortly before it happened. He had jokes, but you wouldn’t see that side of him unless you were close to the family”.

Derrick remembers having to leave Joliet for some time after Novell’s death. It wasn’t a fear of retaliation, but the blurred lines between what he knew about Novell’s case and the rumors that spread afterwards. He had friends who were connected and related to potential suspects in the case, and the uncertainty was too much for him.

The last file on the police report states that “there is insufficient evidence to charge anyone with this offense.” But Novell’s family knows that someone is responsible, and potentially still walking around with the knowledge of what happened on Oct. 12, 1986.

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Anyone with information concerning Novell Woods’s unsolved homicide is asked to call the Joliet Police Department at (815) 724-3020. To remain anonymous and possibly be eligible for a reward, you can call Crime Stoppers of Will County at (800) 823-6734 or text “WILLCOCS” and the tip to 274637.

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