ST. LOUIS COUNTY — A man charged with murder outside a Riverview convenience store this year had skipped bail in a 2022 shooting case, court documents show.
Brandyn S. Hargrove, 20, is accused of killing James Teague Feb. 15 at the Gogo Mini Mart on Chambers Road.
In the previous case, he was charged with shooting and wounding a newspaper carrier in Ladue. Hargrove failed to show up to a hearing after posting bail in that case, but he was never rearrested.
Authorities did not explain the lapse Wednesday that enabled Hargrove to be on the streets in February when Teague was killed.
According to court documents in the murder case, Hargrove shot Teague in the Gogo Mart parking lot because a woman claimed Teague had assaulted her days earlier. The woman and Hargrove were in a car together, and she pointed out Teague as her attacker, Hargrove said.
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Hargrove then said, “I’ll take care of this,” court documents allege. Teague walked out of the market and Hargrove opened fire from the car.
The woman and the driver of the car Hargrove was in told police Hargrove was the gunman, police said.
Teague, 34, died at a hospital. St. Louis County police investigated the killing.
Hargrove was charged Thursday in at-large murder warrants and arrested Tuesday. He is being held in lieu of $500,000 cash bail on charges of first-degree murder, unlawful use of a weapon and two counts of armed criminal action.
Hargrove lives in the 10400 block of Balmoral Drive in St. Louis County.
Hargrove’s earlier shooting case stems from a 2022 assault of a newspaper carrier in Ladue. Hargrove is charged with attempted robbery and first-degree assault or attempted assault. Charges said Hargrove admitted to police that he was one of the men who approached a newspaper carrier’s vehicle about 2:45 a.m. Feb. 15, 2022, near Ladue Road and Maryhill Drive.
According to police and charges, the newspaper carrier told detectives a red sedan passed him and stopped in the road before two men got out and demanded he open the doors to his vehicle.
The newspaper carrier, then 57, tried to stall the carjackers by telling them the police were following him. He then slammed the gas pedal of his Honda CR-V onto the sidewalk to get around the robbers’ vehicle, heard gunfire and felt pain in his back.
Police found a cellphone, glove and a vape pen near the scene and linked the phone to Hargrove, charges said. Hargrove’s bond was set at $100,000, but a judge allowed 10% to be posted in February 2023.
Prosecutors moved to revoke his bond in April 2023 for violations including that Hargrove’s GPS monitor had dead battery notifications. He failed to appear at a May 2023 hearing, so the judge raised it to $200,000, cash only. The initial $10,000 he posted was forfeited.
The county jail said he was never brought back into custody until this week, when he was booked Tuesday in the murder case.
A court document shows that Judge Ellen Ribaudo signed an arrest warrant Feb. 29, two weeks after the Riverview homicide, for failure to appear.