Fourth And Last Suspect Charged In Murder Of 7-Year-Old Natalia Wallace On July 4th
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The fourth and final suspect was ordered held without bond Tuesday in the July 4th shooting that killed 7-year-old Natalia Wallace in the South Austin neighborhood.
Kevin Boyd, 28, was charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. Also charged are Terrell Boyd, 30, Davion Mitchell, 22, and Reginald Merrill, 33.
Police and prosecutors have said Natalia was playing in her grandmother's front yard on the 100 block of North Latrobe Avenue shortly after 7 p.m. on July 4, when four men pulled up in a white Subaru Legacy, and three passengers got out and started shooting.
Kevin and Terrell Boyd are brothers, and prosecutors said the shooting was in retaliation for a July 29 shooting that killed another of their brothers. Police and prosecutors said the suspects are purported gang members who believed the gunman who killed the Boyds' brother lived on the same block of Latrobe as Natalia's grandmother.
Cook County prosecutors have said Merrill was behind the wheel of a white Subaru Legacy when it pulled up on the 100 block of North Latrobe shortly after 7 p.m. on July 4, when three passengers got out of the car and started shooting.
Video showed Mitchell getting out of the front passenger-side door of the car, Kevin Boyd got out the rear driver's side door, and Terrell Boyd getting out the rear passenger-side door while Merrill stayed in the car with it running, prosecutors said.
Natalia was playing in the parkway outside her grandmother's home with several other children at the age of 10 at the time, prosecutors said.
Natalia she was shot in the head. A Chicago Police officer gave Natalia CPR, but she did not survive. She was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital of Cook County. At the time she was killed, Natalia, who had had just finished the first grade at Crown Community Academy of Fine Arts Center, was visiting her grandmother for a 4th of July party.
A 32-year-old man was also wounded in the shooting, police said. He transported himself to Mount Sinai Hospital in fair condition with a gunshot wound to the ankle and a graze wound to the leg.
Merrill waited for the gunmen to get back into the car, and then fled south on Latrobe Avenue and west on Washington Boulevard, prosecutors said. Merrill was the first to be arrested, but he was by himself by then, prosecutors said.
Mitchell and the Boyd brothers were seen in photos together posted to social media before and after the murder, and cellphone records showed messages among the men and several others in time leading up to the shooting – in which they discussed getting guns and blacking out the windows of a car, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Kevin Boyd also posted on Facebook after the murder: "Y'all though(t) you were gonna celebrate the 4th of July, huh?"
Kevin Boyd was arrested in Racine, Wisconsin after a warrant was issued for his arrest. He fought extradition, but was returned to Illinois on Monday, prosecutors said.
He was ordered held without bond in Violence Court (Br. 66) at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse Tuesday.
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