A Chicago father was convicted of trying to kill three people to avenge the murder of his 9-year-old son, who was lured from a playground to an alley with the promise of a juice box by members of a rival gang in 2015 and shot.
A jury deliberated several hours Wednesday before finding Pierre Stokes, 33, guilty of attempted murder, aggravated assault with a firearm and a firearm charge, according to the Chicago Tribune.
He was accused of shooting and wounding the girlfriend of one of the men responsible for her son's death and her two adult nephews in 2016.
Prosecutors have said that The shooting was the result of a dispute between the Bang Bang Gang/Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones and the Killa Ward faction of the Black Gangster Disciples, to which Stokes allegedly belonged.
According to prosecutors, Dwright Boone-Doty and Corey Morgan believed Stokes' faction was responsible for an October 2015 shooting that killed Morgan's 25-year-old brother and wounded his mother. Initially, the plan was to kill Tyshawn Lee's grandmother to send a message to Stokes before the boy was attacked, prosecutors said.
Morgan, Boone-Doty and Kevin Edwards were charged of the child's murder. Morgan was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison. Doty was convicted and sentenced to 90 years, while Edwards, the getaway driver, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for 25 years in prison.
Prosecutors alleged during a 2016 bond hearing that Doty told other inmates he shot Tyshawn and considered cutting off the boy's fingers and ears, the Tribune reported.
Stokes later approached Morgan's girlfriend, Robyn Matthews, at a South Side gas station and shot her and her nephews.
Assistant State's Attorney Melanie Matias told jurors during closing arguments in Stokes' trial that “vigilante justice is not justice.”
But Deputy Public Defender Celeste Addyman argued that saying Matthews' shooting “is a retaliation shooting for Tyshawn's death does not make sense.”
"This happens four or five months later," he said.
