Accused Highland Park gunman indicted on 117 felony charges, including 21 counts of murder
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Accused Highland Park gunman Robert "Bobby" Crimo III faces more than 100 new felony charges, after a Lake County grand jury indicted him for the mass shooting at the July 4th parade.
The accused shooter, who was charged with seven counts of first-degree murder just days after the shooting, has been indicted on a total of 117 counts, including 21 counts of first-degree murder - three counts for each person who died - along with 48 counts of attempted murder and 48 counts of aggravated battery, one for each surviving victim who was struck by a bullet, bullet fragment, or shrapnel, according to Lake County prosecutors.
Those who were killed in the attack were 64-year-old Katherine Goldstein, of Highland Park; 35-year-old Irina McCarthy, of Highland Park; 37-year-old Kevin McCarthy, of Highland Park; 63-year-old Jacquelyn Sundheim, of Highland Park; 88-year-old Stephen Straus, of Highland Park; 78-year-old Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, of Morelos, Mexico; and 69-year-old Eduardo Uvaldo, of Waukegan.
A preliminary hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday has been canceled, and the accused gunman is due back in court next Wednesday for arraignment.
CBS 2 Legal Analyst Irv Miller said the number of charges is not surprising. Lake County prosecutors had said the gunman would eventually face dozens more charges after filing the initial seven murder charges.
As for why the accused shooter faces multiple murder counts for each person who was killed, Miller said Illinois' first-degree murder statute is divided into three parts.
"You can be charged on one, two, or three, or all of them. The first one is a murder charge that encompasses that you intended to kill the person, and obviously the person died. The second part of the murder statute is that you did an act that you knew would create death or substantial bodily harm," he said. "The third one is you committed a murder during the course of committing a felony."
So in this case, prosecutors are arguing the accused gunman could be convicted under all three provisions of the state's first-degree murder statute.
Prosecutors have said the gunman admitted to the mass shooting, and confessed to dressing in women's clothing, and covering his facial tattoos in makeup, to avoid being recognized.
Prosecutors said surveillance video from the shooting showed the gunman using a fire escape ladder to access the roof of a building at the northwest corner of Central Avenue and 2nd Street in Highland Park, and then fleeing down an alley behind that building after the shooting, where he dropped the rifle he'd used, and then wrapped in a cloth before fleeing the scene.
Authorities have not determined a specific motive for the attack, but Christopher Covelli of the Lake County Major Crime Task Force has said the shooter "had some type of affinity toward the number 4 and 7, and inverse with 7/4," a suggestion the attack might have been specifically timed for July 4.
Police also have said, after fleeing the scene of the mass shooting in Highland Park, the gunman drove to Wisconsin, and "seriously contemplated using the firearm he had in his vehicle to commit another shooting in Madison" after coming across a celebration there, but did not carry out a second attack.
He was later arrested in Lake Forest, following a chase from North Chicago. When he was questioned by police, the accused shooter provided a voluntary statement confessing to his actions, saying he looked down the sights of the rifle, aimed, and opened fire at people across the street from the rooftop during the Highland Park July 4th parade.
The accused shooter is being held without bond.
