At around 3:30 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2021, a father of five was working his second job as an overnight clerk at the Circle K/Shell gas station in Marengo.

Brian Pemble, a Capron man who was then 35, was stocking the beer cooler when two masked men in black hoodies came in demanding money, one pistol-whipped him and the other shot him in the thigh.

Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Romito set the scene Tuesday during opening statements for jurors hearing the case of Walter Moran.

Moran, 32, of Cicero, is charged with armed robbery, armed violence and aggravated battery discharging a firearm, Class X felonies, in the case. He is accused of shooting Pemble, now 40, in the thigh when Pemble was unable to open the safe, though Moran’s attorney denied he was the gunman.

Antonio Pedrote, who Romito said entered the convenience store with Moran and was also armed, first pistol-whipped Pemble. The two assailants are seen on surveillance video, shown to jurors, yelling at the clerk repeatedly to open the safe and using racial slurs. He repeatedly tells them he can’t open the safe.

The men left the store with about $42 from the register, the clerk later testified.

Romito said Pemble “was cheerful and friendly” while working a second job overnight to try to “make extra money” to support his family. He greeted the two masked men who then robbed the store and “intentionally and cruelly pistol-whipped and shot him.”

The prosecutor said Moran yelled at the clerk to open the safe, counted to three and shot him on three. He then put the gun to the clerk’s head as the clerk said he could not open the safe, Romito said. Jurors later watched the scene play out, captured on a surveillance video.

Romito said investigators took over six months to put the case together through videos and images but that the “first break came within hours.”

Investigators learned of a robbery that had occurred eight hours prior to the Marengo robbery in Kane County that was “strikingly similar.” The robbers wore the same clothing and hit the clerk in the head in the same manor, Romito said. Cellphone pings also showed the two men traveling together from Chicago to Kane County, then to Harvard then back to Chicago during that time, prosecutors said.

After Marengo, the assailants fled to the West Side of Chicago and the clerk was flown to a hospital in Rockford, authorities said.

Investigators identified the men through cellphone tower pings, their clothing and footwear, the similarities of the two robberies and photos on cellphones and social media, including one of Moran holding a bottle of alcohol allegedly stolen during the robbery, prosecutors said.

Additionally, when Pedrote, nicknamed “Trigger” was in jail prior to Moran’s arrest, Pedrote was heard on a recorded call talking to Moran, referring to him by his nickname “Silencio,” Romito said. She added that Pedrote told Moran, “They won’t shake my tree,” suggesting he wouldn’t give investigators information identifying him. He also said he loved him and asked for some money. the prosecutor said.

But Moran’s attorney, Gran McKerlie, countered during opening statements that Moran is not the shooter. He pointed to another man, Gregory Lee Garner Jr., as the one who shot Pemble, though authorities have said Garner was the getaway driver during the Marengo robbery.

In 2023, Garner, 31, pleaded guilty to armed robbery without a firearm in the case and was sentenced to 13 years in prison, court records and Shaw Local news coverage show. He was transferred Monday from Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro to McHenry County jail and is set to testify against Moran.

McKerlie said social media posts and cell tower pings also show Garner was with Pedrote during the Marengo robbery and Garner is the shooter. He said Moran is charged based on Garner’s “false accusations.” Garner pointed the finger at Moran because he knew he had been under investigation and linked to multiple armed robberies during that time, the defense attorney asserted.

“He was willing to say anything,” McKerlie said. “He knew he was facing decades in prison.”

McKerlie further said Garner was in possession of the gun used in the shooting before, during and after the Marengo robbery. And Garner knew the police had his phone and saw pictures of the gun.

Moran “is an innocent man, who is wrongfully accused and is not guilty,” McKerlie told jurors.

In 2025, Pedrote, 30, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in the case to armed robbery with a firearm, a Class X felony, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, court records and news coverage show.

The clerk, who has since had a sixth child and whose children range in age from 4 to 18, took the stand later Tuesday. He now walks with a cane and said he suffers pain daily and hasn’t worked since the robbery.

He recalled hearing the chimes from the door as the two men entered, being yelled at, feeling the gun pressed into his back before being whipped in the head with it four times.

He said it was “chaotic” and the men seemed “agitated” as they screamed orders at him to open the safe, and then he “felt the shot in my left leg.”

“I barely heard it,” he said. “I felt at first it wasn’t real until I touched my leg and my hand was red. It was traumatic. I sat there until they left, hit the panic button, scooched to the register, got my phone and called 911.”

A GoFundMe for the victim and his family, set up after the shooting, is still active. As of Tuesday it’s raised $19,410 of the $60,000 goal.

The trial is set to continue Wednesday.