CHICAGO (AP) — A jury on Friday convicted a man who prosecutors said plotted then tried to cover up the 2015 slaying of a 9-year-old boy who was lured into a Chicago alley with the promise of a juice box.
Corey Morgan was found guilty of first-degree murder in a crime so brutal that it shocked a city accustomed to almost daily stories of gun violence. The verdict came after a separate jury convicted Morgan's co-defendant, Dwright Boone-Doty, on Thursday and after a third man, Kevin Edwards, pleaded guilty last month in exchange for a 25-year prison sentence.
The three men found Tyshawn shooting baskets on the city's South Side, prosecutors said. Morgan and Edwards watched as Boone-Doty walked over to Tyshawn and struck up a conversation, the said.
What prosecutors said happened next turned one of hundreds of killings in Chicago that year into a national news story: Boone-Doty persuaded Tyshawn to come into an alley — out of sight of anyone else in the park — by promising him a juice box. Once in the alley, Boone-Doty pulled out a gun and fired several times at close range, according to prosecutors.
People in the park who came running over found the boy's body, his basketball a few feet away.
"He wants to see them hurt the way he hurt," said Engebretson.
Morgan's lawyers said police focused on him because he was a gang member, and they argued that the person who identified Morgan as being in the park did so only after asking about a reward. Police wanted to quickly solve the case, and that Morgan "made sense" because of the shooting of his brother and mother, attorney Todd Pugh told jurors Thursday.
"He, in the eyes of police, is one of those throwaway people," Pugh said. He later went on to add: "He was a gang banger who police thought was never going to amount to anything."