CHICAGO—A jury convicted a man of first-degree murder on the night of Oct 3, in the shooting death of a 9-year-old Chicago boy who was lured into an alley with the promise of a juice box.
Prosecutors contended that Dwright Boone-Doty and fellow gang member Corey Morgan planned the November 2015 killing of Tyshawn Lee before Boone-Doty took a gun Morgan gave him and shot the boy.
The Cook County jury that found Boone-Doty guilty deliberated for a little more than two hours after a long day of closing arguments. A separate jury will decide Morgan’s fate, and the judge ordered those jurors sequestered for the night after they didn’t reach a verdict. They will resume deliberations Friday.
Prosecutors said Tyshawn was killed because Boone-Doty and Morgan believed his father belonged to a rival gang they blamed for fatally shooting Morgan’s brother and wounding his mother. The fourth-grader, still wearing his school uniform, had headed to a park to play basketball.
Boone-Doty befriended Tyshawn to gain his trust after the boy arrived at the park, prosecutors said. He picked up the basketball that the boy had brought to the park, lured him into a nearby alley and shot him with a .40-caliber handgun multiple times at close range while Morgan watched from an SUV, they said.
Prosecutors said tests revealed that Boone-Doty’s DNA was on the basketball found near the boy’s body. The 25-year-old Boone-Doty faces up to life in prison.
Morgan, 31, and Boone-Doty were tried together but before the separate juries. The trial lasted for nearly three weeks.
Prosecutors played a tape of Boone-Doty bragging to another jail inmate that he’d killed the boy. Boone-Doty’s lawyer dismissed the tape, saying that Boone-Doty was lying to the other inmate to make himself look tough.
A third man charged in the attack, Kevin Edwards, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder before trial. Edwards, who prosecutors described as the getaway driver, received a 25-year prison sentence.
He Had Nothing to Do With Any of This Gang Nonsense
Assistant State’s Attorney Margaret Hillmann said Boone-Doty and Morgan, reputed members of the Black P. Stone Nation Bang Bang Gang, or BBGs, that day were looking to exact revenge for the killing of Morgan’s brother and wounding of his mother.
“Shooting Morgan’s mother was beyond the pale,” Hillmann said in her opening. “There weren’t many rules in this feud, but families were off-limits. They were untouchable.”
Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, is accused of belonging to the Killa Ward faction.
Morgan’s brother, Tracy, was shot and killed in a car while with their mother in October 2015, the prosecutor said.
“This made Morgan mad,” Hillmann said. “He wasn’t just mad. He was in a murderous rage, saying he was going to kill grandmas, mammas, kids and whoever he could catch.”
Morgan and Edwards allegedly set out to find a Killa Ward member to avenge the death, Hillmann said.
“When they couldn’t find Pierre Stokes, they found his 9-year-old son Tyshawn, a fourth-grader who had nothing to do with any of this gang nonsense,” Hillmann said.
An autopsy of Tyshawn’s body showed two perforating gunshot wounds, and part of his right thumb was lost as a defensive wound trying to block a gunshot, according to court papers. The boy’s body had a gunshot wound to the head, a bullet graze wound to his right upper back, and a superficial wound to the right forearm.
Tyshawn’s death shocked residents and authorities. John Escalante, the then-interim superintendent of Chicago police, said that even in a city that has witnessed numerous gang-related killings, the slaying of Tyshawn “was something far more sinister.”
The CNN Wire contributed to this report.
