A California jury on Thursday convicted a 26-year-old man in the road rage killing of a 6-year-old boy in 2021.
Marcus Anthony Eriz was found guilty on counts of second-degree murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle, both with felony enhancements of personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death. He faces 40 years to life in prison at sentencing on April 12, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Six-year-old Aiden Leos was in a booster seat in the back seat of his mother’s car on May 21, 2021, on his way to school, as CrimeOnline reported. His mother was driving in the car pool lane when another vehicle, which investigators later learned was driven by Eriz’s girlfriend, cut her off. The mom flipped the driver off and kept driving.
Moments later, a passenger in the car — later identified as Eriz — opened fire. A bullet struck the little boy.
““Mommy, my tummy hurts!” he exclaimed, according to his sister, Alexis Cloonan, who described the circumstances of the events during a press conference.
The mother pulled to the side of the road, and an off-duty police officer stopped and performed CPR until paramedics arrived. The child was taken to Children’s Hospital Orange County, where he was pronounced dead.
“The heartbreak of a parent losing a child is so overwhelming that no word exists to describe it,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer after the conviction. “The short, happy life of Aiden Leos is a life interrupted, abruptly ended by a bullet that pierced Aiden’s heart. The bullet not only killed a little 6-year-old boy; it ripped a hole in the heart of all of Orange County.
“Six-year-old boys should be playing outside in the sunshine, soaking in all the magic and wonder that is boyhood, not lying dead in a tiny, child-size coffin because a man he never met decided to execute him for no conceivable reason. While we will never know what Aiden would have become, we know that the pursuit of justice did not end until his killer was captured and this child murderer was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Eriz’s girlfriend, 26-year-old Wynne Lee, has been charged with one count of accessory after the fact and one count of having a concealed firearm in a vehicle. She is still awaiting trial and faces three years in state prison and a year in the Orange County Jail if she’s convicted on both charges.
After the shooting, police launched an all-out manhunt for the shooter, ultimately arrested Eriz and Lee on June 6, 2021.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Featured image: Aiden Leos/GoFundMe]
