Telly Hankton, a man described by Police Superintendent Warren Riley as one of the city‘s most dangerous wanted suspects, turned himself in to police on Monday. Hankton was booked into the Orleans Parish jail at around 4:30 p.m., according to criminal sheriff records. Already facing charges for a 2008 murder, Hankton was wanted for a murder committed on Saturday night.
Hankton, 33, was freed April 9 after posting a $1 million bond, cobbled together with mostly property bonds and some cash, and awaiting trial for a 2008 murder when he committed another streetside murder over the weekend, police say.
Both victims - Darnell Stewart in 2008 and Jesse Reed on Saturday night - were arrested in the killing Hankton‘s cousin George ”Cup” Hankton III, 40, in 2007. But neither was brought to trial.
Police collected 59 casings at the crime scene that unfolded just before midnight Saturday in the 2300 block of Terpsichore Street. Reed, 26, died on the pavement. On May 13, 2008, Darnell Stewart was run over by the Hanktons and then shot several times in the face a year ago, police said.
Crimestoppers on Monday raised the reward for the arrest and indictment of Telly Hankton to $5,000.
”We know him to be a murderer, he is dangerous and we need to get him off the streets,” said Riley at an afternoon press conference at police headquarters. ”He just blew a million-dollar bond. It meant nothing to him. He doesn‘t value anything.”
Reed was killed as brazenly and as cold as Stewart. But Riley said that Hankton met with Reed three days earlier to tell him that they no longer had a ”problem” and that they were no longer enemies.
Three days later, Riley said, Hankton ambushed Reed.
According to police, Reed was sitting on the porch of an abandoned house with a group of men when Hankton drove up to the group in a maroon Taurus. Hankton got out of the car and opened fire on the group, police said.