Judge: Higgins not to be released

MARKHAM, Ill. (WOOD) - One day after not appearing at a scheduled court hearing in Illinois, Kentwood homicide suspect Javonte Higgins was wheeled into a heavily-armed Cook County court.

Higgins, who is fighting extradition to Michigan to face felony home invasion charges, was in a suburban Chicago court on a charge of resisting arrest.

He was brought to court in a high-risk vehicle, not in a bus with other inmates. Inside the court were about a half-dozen guards as he was wheeled in, and guards told 24 Hour News 8 he was talking to himself.

Seen briefly before his court appearance, Higgins was smiling, sitting cross-legged and shackled in the wheelchair, wearing a blue Illinois Department of Correction coat.

When Judge Thomas Carroll asked if he was Javonte Higgins, he looked away and refused to answer.

Judge Carroll dismissed the charge of resisting arrest "in the interest of justice" so the extradition process can move forward.

However, he ordered, "Under no circumstances is he to be released."

Higgins was arrested in Blue Island, Illinois - a Chicago suburb - on Jan. 18 on outstanding felony warrants related to a December home invasion, stolen pickup and police chase.

During that police chase, he crashed the stolen pickup and ended up in a Grand Rapids hospital with broken bones among his critical injuries.

Higgins decided on his own, against doctors' orders, police say, to walk out of the hospital. Police said the hospital staff did call them, but that he left in a taxi before they could get there.

A warrant wasn't written until after Higgins disappeared.

Higgins is now a suspect in the Jan. 5 killings of 81-year-old David Bouwman and his 80-year-old wife Vivian inside their home. After they were killed, their 2001 Cadillac DeVille was stolen, driven four miles to a Wyoming apartment complex, doused with an accelerant and set on fire.

He will possibly remain in a Chicago jail until February 20, the date of his next extradition hearing. He has not yet been charged in the Bouwman case.