By RUMMANA HUSSAIN
Chicago Sun-Times
Kevin Edwards | Chicago Police
The alleged getaway driver connected to the fatal shooting of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee was ordered held without bond on Wednesday.
Kevin Edwards was the third suspect to be charged, effectively closing the case that Cook County Judge James Brown said “shocked the city to its core.”
“Actually, it shocked the nation … that a 9-year-old boy could be executed while playing basketball because he was related to a gang member,” the judge added.
Edwards, of the 10600 block of South Green Street, has always been enrolled in special education classes, Assistant Public Defender Kathryn Lisco told Brown.
Given his “minimal mental faculties,” he could not come up with such a deadly plot, Lisco argued as the 23-year-old Edwards stood in a gray sweatshirt, and black and red pajama pants.
Tyshawn Lee | photo provided
But Edwards, a member of the Bang Bang Gang Terrordome faction of the Black P-Stones, had threatened to retaliate in a shooting that killed his co-defendant’s brother, Assistant State’s Attorney Jamie Santini said.
He allegedly said those who killed 25-year-old Tracey Morgan on Oct. 13 “tweaked and everybody must die.”
Police have said Tyshawn was killed in retaliation for the murder of Morgan, killed after he left a police-sponsored meeting of parolees whose goal was to resolve gang conflicts in the area.
Dwright Boone-Doty | Chicago Police
Pierre Stokes, Tyshawn’s father, allegedly belongs to a faction of the rival Gangster Disciples.
The alleged gunman, 22-year-old Dwright Boone-Doty; and Morgan’s brother, 27-year-old Corey Morgan, have already been charged with the murder and are being held without bail at Cook County Jail.
A car Edwards was in was stopped for a traffic violation downstate over the weekend and he was arrested for resisting arrest and obstructing a peace officer, according to the Vermilion County sheriff’s office.
Edwards jumped out of the car and took off running before he was caught a block away, Santini said. He gave the arresting officer a false name. Edwards was held at the jail in Danville before he was transferred to Chicago.
A first-degree murder warrant had been out for Edwards since about four weeks after Tyshawn’s slaying on Nov. 2, 2015.
Corey Morgan | Chicago Police
Authorities have said Tyshawn was lured into an alley and killed execution-style in the 8000 block of South Damen in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Boone-Doty offered to take the boy to a store for candy and walked him down the alley before shooting him repeatedly at close range, prosecutors allege.
Witnesses said they saw Edwards’ dark-colored SUV follow Tyshawn and Boone-Doty into the alley, Santini said.
After the shooting, Boone-Doty jumped into the van, which the murder suspects later wiped down with cleaning products, Santini said.
The internal global positioning system was reset and the SUV was abandoned.
But police were able to retrieve the GPS data, which showed that Edwards’ SUV was parked in and around Dawes Park at the time of Tyshawn’s murder, Santini said.