Man charged with murder of popular Chicago charter boat captain at DuSable Harbor
Six months after a well-known charter boat captain was found dead at DuSable Harbor in downtown Chicago, a man has been charged with his murder.
Alexis Trader, 34, has been charged with one count of murder in the Aug. 30 death of 63-year-old Nabil Abzal, also known as "Captain Bill."
At Trader's first court appearance on Thursday, Cook County prosecutors said Abzal was sleeping on a charter yacht during the busy Labor Day weekend when Trader jumped the locked dock gate, letting some friends into DuSable Harbor.
Prosecutors said Captain Bill woke up just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 30, when two women in the group snuck onto his boat, taking videos and hanging out.
As the captain took the women back to the gate and off the property, Trader allegedly came up and hit Abzal in the face, knocking him back. The victim's head hit a metal grate before Abzal disappeared under the water, according to prosecutors.
Trader allegedly called 911 from his phone after witnesses heard the splash of Abzal's body falling in the harbor, but he gave police a fake name, "Young James," before scaled the locked gate again to grab what looked like a wallet and left.
Police only started investigating Abzal's death as a murder after other boat staff found blunt wraps and vapes on the boat hours later.
Abzal's former passengers said they always wondered what happened to the popular charter boat captain.
"I figured that he didn't just, like, fall in the water and drown, because he's a very experienced boater. I know he told me he had been, like, a captain for over 20 or 30 years, or something like that, and so it's very unlikely that someone with that type of boating experience would just drown," Sharonda Wilson said. "I'm just hoping that his family, you know, gets some type of peace."
Prosecutors said Trader has a long criminal history dating back to 2008, which includes open cases, including an attack of a gas station attendant in January 2025, two separate burglaries from April, and a DUI arrest just one week before Abzal's death.
The judge said that factored heavily in his decision to order Trader detained at Cook County Jail while he awaits trial.