Chicago Police Charge Suspect in Tyshawn Lee Killing

27 Nov, 2015

A South Side man has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, who was lured into an alley and gunned down just doors from his home.

Corey Morgan, 27, of the 7800 block of South Hoyne Avenue, is expected to appear for a bond hearing Friday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, according to Cook County state’s attorney spokeswoman Sally Daly.

Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who has called the killing “probably the most abhorrent, cowardly, unfathomable crime” he had seen in his 35-year career, will hold a news conference about the charges at 10 a.m. Friday at Area South police headquarters, 727 E. 111^th St.

Police say Tyshawn was lured into an alley in the 8000 block of South Damen Avenue on Nov. 2 and killed because of his father’s gang ties. He was shot several times, including a fatal shot to the side of the head.

Police had questioned Morgan two days after Tyshawn’s killing but released him. Two weeks later, Morgan was arrested again and charged with a weapons violation apparently unrelated to Tyshawn’s killing.

He was ordered held on $1 million bail and was later released after posting the required bond.

Law enforcement sources have said Tyshawn may be the latest victim of a violent gang feud.

Morgan’s brother, Tracey Morgan was fatally shot Oct. 13 after leaving a “gang call-in” meeting, an anti-violence effort by Chicago police and other law enforcement.

Their mother, who was also in the car, was wounded by the gunfire. Police have been investigating whether Morgan, a reputed member of the Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones, was followed by a rival gang member who also attended the meeting in a Chatham church.

Five days later, a member of the rival Killa Ward faction of the Gangster Disciples was wounded in a shooting near 78th and Honore streets in Gresham that also left 19-year-old Brianna Jenkins dead, according to police.

Like his brother Tracey, Corey Morgan is a reputed member of the Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones, according to police.

The Tribune was the first to interview Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, after his son was killed. The day after the slaying, he denied to the newspaper that anyone would have a motive to kill him.

But if someone did, there was no reason to take it out on his son because Stokes said he was out in the neighborhood all the time. If anyone wanted to harm him, he or she could find the opportunity, he said.

“I’m not hard to find,” Stokes said.

During his interview with the Tribune, Stokes did not talk specifically about whether he was a gang member but said he disagreed with what police have said about him. He also expressed frustration with police, saying investigators seemed more interested in him than in finding who fatally shot Tyshawn.

“They’re more worried about me. Why are you worried about me, not the killer?” Stokes, 25, said earlier this month outside his residence in the Auburn-Gresham. “I’m not the killer. Worry about the killer.”

But Stokes said he felt guilty that he was not at his son’s side when he walked to his grandmother’s house on the afternoon he was killed.

“To be honest, I feel bad,” he said. “I feel like it’s my fault.”

Tyshawn was a fourth-grader at Joplin Elementary School and loved to play basketball.  A basketball he always carried with him was found near where he was shot.

The autopsy report showed the bullets struck the 9-year-old in his thumb and hand and grazed his back. But the fatal shot hit him on the right side of his head.

Chief Medical Examiner Stephen J. Cina, who performed the autopsy, found evidence of gunpowder burns on the left side of Tyshawn’s face, an indication that the gunman fired one shot at close range, he wrote.

Chicago Tribune

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