Murder convict charged in West Woodlawn triple slaying

A man who finished serving a sentence for murder four months ago has been charged with a triple-slaying last week that left a South Side home strewn with bullet-riddled bodies.
Curtis A. Davis Jr. was once friends with the three men he’s now charged with shooting to death March 27 at an apartment in the West Woodlawn neighborhood.
Dozens of shell casings littered the scene, and one victim was found on the porch, his body disfigured by 33 bullet wounds.
On Sunday, Cook County Judge James Brown ordered Davis, 40, held without bail on three charges of murder. Davis, bald and dressed in a plaid shirt, did not speak during the brief hearing.
Davis was freed from prison about three years ago after serving time for the February 21, 1989 murder of Harvey Austin in a public housing building in the 4400 block of South Evans Avenue in the Bronzeville neighborhood, according to prosecutors and court records. Two other men were acquitted in separate trials, but jurors found Davis guilty in 1990 and he was sentenced to 40 years, according to court records.
He was paroled in November 2008, and he finished serving his sentence in November 2011.
About 11 p.m. Tuesday, Davis knocked on the door of the apartment in the 6300 block of South Evans Avenue. One man in the apartment, Michael Nowels, 33, of the 6400 block of South Stony Island Avenue, had planned to leave, and he walked out of the apartment as another of the men answered the door to see Davis.
After the man closed the door on Davis, the gunman fired several shots at Nowels, who was later found on the home’s porch with 33 bullet wounds.
Davis then forced open the apartment’s door and opened fire on Brown and Julius Benford, 29, of the 4400 block of South Princeton Avenue. Once those two were wounded, another man in the apartment grabbed a gun and shot at Davis — without hitting him — before scrambling out of the apartment to safety. Davis, whose listed address is a public housing facility on West 71st Street near the Dan Ryan Expressway, left the home and disassembled and discarded the gun.
Emergency responders found the bodies of Brown and Nowels. Benford was pronounced dead at a local hospital.
A witness identified Davis as the gunman, and he was arrested about 1:45 a.m. Friday at home. He confessed to the shootings