COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A jury on Monday found Marcus Floyd guilty in the 2010 murder of off-duty Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham IV.
Floyd was the last of three men tried for the May 2010 attack, which prosecutors have described as a botched motorcycle robbery. Accomplices Paris McGee and Toyious Taylor were convicted in 2014 and are currently serving life sentences.
"This doesn't change things," Wortham's father, retired Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham III, said after the verdict was announced Monday.
"But there had to be some kind of justice — to keep these guys off the streets, keep them from killing again," said Wortham III, who was with the CPD for 32 years.
On May 19, 2010, Wortham IV was leaving his parents' Chatham home when four men approached him and tried to steal his motorcycle, according to prosecutors. Wortham announced he was a cop, pulled his gun and was fatally shot in the ensuing gunfire.
Wortham III, who had seen part of the altercation from his front porch, ran inside and grabbed his own gun, he testified last week. Wortham III returned to the front yard, crouched behind his daughter's car and opened fire toward the attackers — critically injuring Floyd and killing Floyd's cousin, Brian Floyd.
McGee and Taylor drove off, according to court testimony.
When Wortham III spotted his son lying on the ground bleeding, "I told him it would be all right, just hold on," the police veteran testified last week. "He said, 'It hurts.'"
Wortham was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
“Wortham would survive two tours of duty in Iraq, but he would not survive leaving his family home,” Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Jo Murtaugh said Monday morning as she began her closing argument.
After more than three hours of deliberation, jurors announced about 7 p.m. Monday that they found Floyd guilty of the first-degree murder of Wortham IV.
Floyd also was found guilty of attempting to murder Wortham III and murdering his own cousin, Brian Floyd, who'd been gunned down by the Worthams in the May 2010 shootout. In Illinois, anyone involved in a felony that results in a homicide can be charged with murder — regardless of who pulled the trigger.
Jurors said they did not believe Marcus Floyd was the gunman who killed Wortham IV, and Floyd was found not guilty of aggravated discharge of a firearm.
Based on physical evidence presented during the trial, Floyd's deceased cousin, Brian Floyd, was the gunman who killed Wortham IV, Assistant Public Defender David McMahon said during his closing argument.
While Marcus Floyd was there with his cousin the evening Wortham IV was killed, McMahon argued, Marcus Floyd didn't pull the trigger, and police never found a weapon on him.
"There's no question [Wortham IV] is a hero," McMahon said. "He served his country and community. He died a tragic and awful death. ... [But] justice has been done for Thomas Wortham. Brian Floyd is dead. He's the one who shot and killed Thomas Wortham."
Murtaugh asked the jury to think about responsibility and accountability.
Marcus Floyd, Brian Floyd, McGee and Taylor are "all responsible for the death of Thomas Wortham IV even if they didn’t pull the trigger because they were all in on it," she argued.
Marcus Floyd's next court date is Nov. 17.
Floyd has previously argued that he has retrograde amnesia and cannot remember the events surrounding Wortham IV's death. Floyd was shot five or six times during the May 2010 attack and required multiple surgeries, authorities said. He was briefly in a coma, suffered two heart attacks and lost large amounts of blood.
Floyd's defense team argued in an August preliminary hearing that Floyd was not fit to stand trail. But prosecutors said it didn't matter whether Floyd could remember what happened. All that mattered, they said, was whether he had the intellectual and cognitive skills to help his attorneys plan his defense.
A jury on Aug. 20 found Floyd fit to stand trial.
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