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Man Charged with April Murder While in Jail for August Slaying

By DNAinfo Staff on January 26, 2013 12:13pm

 Joseph Sanders, 20, was held without bail Friday on a first degree murder charge in the April 2012 shooting of Joshua Cepeda.
Joseph Sanders, 20, was held without bail Friday on a first degree murder charge in the April 2012 shooting of Joshua Cepeda.
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Cook County Sheriff's Office

CHICAGO — A McKinley Park man who was already in custody for an August 2012 murder was held without bail Friday on a second murder charge.

Joseph Sanders, 20, was charged Friday with first degree murder in the fatal shooting of Joshua Cepeda, 27, in April 2012. Sanders was already in custody for the murder of 17-year-old Taylor Diorio in McKinley Park on Aug. 18, 2012, police confirmed.

In the fatal April incident, Cepeda and Ricardo Ramos, who was also injured in the shooting, were inside a parked, blue Kia Sedona minivan in the 2400 block of West 34th Place, near St. Anthony Hospital, according to prosecutors.

About 1:22 p.m., a silver SUV driving toward the minivan stopped, reversed and turned down an alley. Five minutes later, several witnesses in the minivan and standing nearby saw Sanders firing a gun from a basketball court North of 34th Street, prosecutors said.

A bullet shattered the rear driver’s side window and another hit near the van’s gas tank. Cepeda was shot in the head and Ramos was shot in the right thigh, prosecutors said.

Video surveillance footage shows Cepeda fleeing the scene with several other people in the silver SUV, prosecutors said. Witnesses of the shooting also identified Sanders as the shooter, officials said.

Cepeda and Ramos were driven to nearby St. Anthony Hospital in the minivan. Cepeda died from his gunshot wound April 29, 2012.

Cepeda was already in custody on charges in the August slaying of Diorio, whom he allegedly shot  from a second floor window in the 2400 block of West 35th Street, prosecutors said.

If convicted of both murders, Cepeda faces life in prison.