Mark Hall / Photo from Chicago Police
Two men have been charged with murder for separate shootings blocks apart that killed a deacon and a musician December 2013 on the South Side.
Mark Hall and Devin Aldridge, both 23, were each charged with two counts of first-degree murder for the Dec. 19, 2013, shootings that killed Deacon Willie Cooper and musician Eric “Guitar” Davis, authorities said.
Both Davis and Cooper were sitting in parked vehicles when they were shot about 30 minutes apart in the early morning hours, police said at the time.
Cooper, 74, was waiting to give a friend a ride to work when he was shot at 4:44 a.m. in the 7000 block of South East End Avenue. Davis, 41, was sitting in his vehicle in the 6700 block of South East End about 5:20 a.m. when he was shot, police said.
Both Davis, of the 14200 block of South Eggleston in Riverdale, and Cooper, of the 6800 block of South Crandon, were dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Family, police and Cook County Crime Stoppers passed out flyers in the neighborhood as recently as June asking for the public’s help to solve the shootings.
Devin Aldridge / Photo from Chicago Police
“Willie Cooper was a deacon of his church and a great person who would help anyone,” Crime Stoppers Chairman George McDade said in a statement in June. “Eric Davis is from a family of jazz musicians and had a promising career.”
McDade called both men “pillars in their community.”
Hall, of the 7000 block of South East End Avenue, and Aldridge, of the 1600 block of East 68th Street, are expected to appear in bond court Saturday, police said.
— Sun-Times Media Wire