Brown gets $500,000 cash bond in his first La Crosse court appearance for Knox murder

A cash bond of half-a-million dollars is set for an Illinois man charged in a La Crosse murder. 

Nelson Brown of Rockford, also known as Petey, is accused of 1st-degree murder and reckless endangerment in the January 8th shooting death of Ernest Knox at a Rose Street building.  He faces six criminal charges in all.

Brown was brought to La Crosse late last week, after being arrested in Arizona just after Thanksgiving.  Prosecutor Gideon Wertheimer says a witness saw Brown very close to Knox when the shooting happened.

“He shot a man to death in cold blood from about 3 or 4 feet away,” Wertheimer told Judge Gloria Doyle at a court hearing on Monday.

Wertheimer requested the $500,000 bond, noting that Brown was arrested halfway across the country, and still has a strong incentive to flee. Freeman was arrested in Tennessee back in March.

A criminal complaint also charges Brown with endangering the safety of another person at the crime scene, and with felony possession of a firearm. Police say multiple rounds were fired at Knox in a stairwell.

The judge has ordered Brown to stay away from the building where the shooting occurred, which formerly housed the Verse Bar.