COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A killer convicted in the murder of three people outside a Chatham bakery thought he was "home free" when the wrong guy initially got charged with his crime, prosecutors said.
But Tuesday, more than two years after those charges were dropped, 21-year-old Aaron Barnes was convicted by a jury in the Nov. 5, 2011 slaying of Chanda Thompson, murdered along with her boyfriend and another man while picking up a child's birthday cake from A Piece of Cake Bakery, located at 412 E. 87th St.
Barnes faces life in prison.
Barnes allegedly walked up to their car in the parking lot and started shooting. He fired 17 shots, including three bullets into Thompson's head, prosecutors said. Thompson, her boyfriend, Shawn Russell, and their buddy, Cortez Champion, all 21 years old, were killed.
Two days later, charges were announced against 17-year-old Nicko Grayson.
Authorities alleged at the time that Grayson, dressed in a black hoodie, ran up to the victims' car and opened fire. But several weeks later those charges were dropped when new evidence came to light, prosecutors said.
Scott Kamin, an attorney representing Barnes, focused his defense on the fact that someone else had initially been named as the killer. He also argued that an ex-officer who testified to hearing the shots and following the shooter as he fled failed to identify Barnes as the guilty party.
"You heard a former officer say, 'That's not him," Kamin said, motioning toward Barnes in court. "And, they had a shooter. I don't know why they changed their minds."
But his defense failed to overcome the "mountain of evidence" against Barnes, including the alleged murder weapon, discovered by police in his possession months after the shooting, eyewitness accounts, video of his car leaving the scene and the defendant's own admissions.
"[The case against Grayson] was a blessing in disguise," Cook County Assistant States Attorney Joseph Hodal said during closing statements on Tuesday. "It made this defendant believe he was home free."
With Grayson charged as the murderer, Barnes went around telling "everyone and their mothers" that he was the real shooter, prosecutors said. Barnes would eventually tell police that he was the shooter, too.
Barnes allegedly confessed to killing Champion in retaliation for the murder of his friend, 23-year-old Alex McDonald, fatally shot in a drive-by in September 2011, prosecutors said. Barnes didn't mean to kill Thompson and her boyfriend.
But that didn't matter to jurors in the case. Barnes was convicted in the triple murder Tuesday, and could face natural life in prison.
"In the end, all the evidence pointed to [Barnes]," prosecuting attorney Kim Ward said, praising police for reopening the case.
"How often do we hear about people getting out of prison on false convictions?" she said. "Their decision to reopen the case led us to the true killer; they are the real heroes in this case."
For more neighborhood news, listen to DNAinfo Radio here:
