Man convicted, another acquitted in murder of 7-year-old Natalia Wallace on 4th of July 2020
CHICAGO (CBS) -- One man was convicted on Thursday in the shooting death of 7-year-old Natalia Wallace on the 4th of July four years ago in the South Austin neighborhood, but a second man was acquitted of all charges.
According to Cook County Circuit Court records, following a bench trial earlier this year, Judge Joanne Rosado on Thursday found 35-year-old Kevin Boyd guilty of murder, aggravated battery, and aggravated discharge of a firearm in Natalia's death.
But Rosado found co-defendant Reginald Merrill, 37, not guilty of all charges.
Two other men, 35-year-old Terrell Boyd – Kevin Boyd's twin brother – and 27-year-old Davion Mitchell, are awaiting bench trials of their own, after all four men opted against jury trials in the case.
Police and prosecutors have said Natalia was playing in her grandmother's front yard on the 100 block of North Latrobe Avenue shortly after 7 p.m. on July 4, 2020, when four men pulled up in a white Subaru Legacy, and three passengers got out and started shooting.
Prosecutors said the shooting was in retaliation for a July 29 shooting that killed one of the Boyds' brothers. Police and prosecutors said the suspects are gang members who believed the gunman who killed the Boyds' brother lived on the same block of Latrobe as Natalia's grandmother.
Prosecutors said Merrill was behind the wheel of the Subaru when video showed Mitchell, Kevin Boyd, and Terrell Boyd getting out of the SUV and opening fire near Wallace's grandmother's home while the girl was playing in the parkway with several other children at the time.
Natalia was shot in the head. A Chicago Police officer gave Natalia CPR, but she did not survive. She was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital of Cook County. At the time she was killed, Natalia, who had had just finished the first grade at Crown Community Academy of Fine Arts Center, was visiting her grandmother for a 4th of July party.
A 32-year-old man was also wounded in the shooting, and took himself to Mount Sinai Hospital to be treated for a gunshot wound to the ankle and a graze wound to the leg, police said.
Merrill waited for the gunmen to get back into the car, and then fled south on Latrobe Avenue and west on Washington Boulevard, prosecutors said.
Mitchell and the Boyd brothers were seen in photos together posted to social media before and after the murder, and cellphone records showed messages among the men and several others in time leading up to the shooting – in which they discussed getting guns and blacking out the windows of a car, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Kevin Boyd also posted on Facebook after the murder: "Y'all though(t) you were gonna celebrate the 4th of July, huh?"
Merrill was arrested little more than two hours after the shooting. Mitchell was arrested days later, and Terrell Boyd was arrested a month after the shooting. Kevin Boyd was arrested months later in Racine, Wisconsin.
Trial dates for Terrell Boyd and Davion Mitchell have not yet been set.
