Closing arguments begin in trial of 2 men charged in slaying of Tyshawn Lee
Left to Right: Corey Morgan, Tyshawn Lee, Dwright Boone-Doty
CHICAGO - Closing arguments are expected to begin Thursday morning in the 2015 slaying of a 9-year-old Chicago boy.
One jury will decide to acquit or convict Dwright Boone-Doty and another jury will make the same decision about Corey Morgan, both of whom are charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Tyshawn Lee.
Authorities say Boone-Doty lured the 4th grader into an alley by promising to buy him a juice box and then shot him. They contend he and Morgan planned to kill the boy because they believed his father was a member of a rival gang responsible for the shooting death of Morgan's brother.
Prosecutors say the shooting was the result of a feud between the defendants' Bang Bang Gang/Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones and the Killa Ward faction of the Black Gangster Disciples, which the slain boy's father, Pierre Stokes, allegedly belonged to.
According to prosecutors, Boone-Doty and Morgan believed that Stokes' faction was responsible for an October 2015 shooting that killed Morgan's 25-year-old brother, Tracey Morgan, and wounded his mother. That his mother was shot may have been even more significant to Corey Morgan than the killing of his brother, who was in the same faction, as it was a breach of gang etiquette that led Corey Morgan to seek revenge on the innocent family members of his rivals, prosecutors allege.
What happened next followed the deadly playbook of so many Chicago shootings. A few days after Morgan's brother was killed, Boone-Doty allegedly fired into a car occupied by a rival gang member. As happens in so many of these shootings, the rival survived his injuries but the woman who was sitting beside him, 19-year-old Brianna Jenkins, was killed.
Prosecutors say the defendants then turned their attention to getting back at Stokes, first plotting to kill Tyshawn's grandmother before settling on Tyshawn. And they wanted no leave no doubt about their message.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.