Metra Shooter Pleads Guilty

By Marcus Gilmer in News on Dec 3, 2008 9:12PM

Telly Virgin (pictured left) pleaded guilty today to charges of firing at a Metra train in an attempt to kill the engineer as part of a murder-for-hire plan. Theodore Howard (pictured right) gave Virgin crack and cash in exchange for shooting his ex-wife either at their son's day care center or aboard the Metra train she engineered.

In Virgin’s guilty plea, he says Howard drove him to the Metra train station on June 6, 2007 to carry out the shooting. Virgin shot at the moving train believing Brown was operating it.

But Brown had the day off, and Virgin shot at another engineer. The engineer wasn't hit by gunfire but was hurt diving to the floor.

Virgin said he returned to Howard's car and Howard gave him his compensation: 14 "dime" bags of crack cocaine and a promise of $500 later -- after Virgin shot at her again.

Two days later, Virgin returned to the station where he shot again, this time in the air, but once more Howard's ex was not on-board. The engineer who was on-board broke his elbow diving to the floor after hearing the shots. Virgin is facing 210 to 262 months (17.5 to 22 years) but he could have that cut in half for cooperating with prosecutors in their case against Howard.

Mugshot images via the Sun-Times