Corey Morgan was found guilty Friday of murdering 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee in 2015.
The jury verdict came after nine hours of deliberation.
Morgan, an alleged gang member, stood trial alongside gunman Dwright Boone-Doty. A separate jury found Boone-Doty guilty of first-degree murder late Thursday night, after only three hours in the jury room.
Morgan faces up to 100 years; Boone-Doty faces up to life in prison.
An hour after convening in the jury room around 9 a.m. Friday, jurors posed two questions to the judge, requesting guidance on whether Morgan could be convicted of special allegations related to kidnapping Tyshawn in the course of the murder, as well as enhancements related to the use of a firearm and Tyshawn’s young age — queries that even Morgan’s lawyers interpreted as signs jurors had reached a conclusion on the lead charge of first-degree murder.
Though it was Boone-Doty that lured Tyshawn away from a South Side park on a sunny November afternoon and shot the fourth-grader in an alley across the street, prosecutors said Morgan was a key accomplice, and one of the drivers of a violent gang feud that led to Tyshawn’s death.
Witnesses testified that in the fall of 2015, Morgan and his fellow members of the Terrordome street gang declared family members of their rivals in the Killa Ward gang set to be fair game, after a Morgan’s brother was killed and his mother wounded in a shooting carried out by Killa Ward members. Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, was a high-ranking member of Killa Ward.
The sister of Morgan’s former co-defendant, Kevin Edwards, testified the day after Tracey Morgan was killed, Corey Morgan told Edwards that “everyone must die” in retribution.
“He said ... everybody must die. Grandmas, mamas, kids and all,” Moesha Walker testified.
Another of Morgan’s brothers, Anthony, bought the .40-caliber pistol Boone-Doty used to kill Tyshawn, a weapon he purchased along with several other guns through a straw buyer in New Mexico. Corey Morgan was carrying another gun from that haul of firearms when he was arrested a few days after Tyshawn was shot. Anthony Morgan pleaded guilty to federal charges for trafficking the guns.
Investigators gathered crucial evidence from the computer system of the getaway vehicle, a black Ford Edge that was taken from a rental car lot at Midway Airport. It was found abandoned in south suburban Dolton a few weeks after Tyshawn’s murder. GPS data from the SUV traced a path from Morgan’s house in Lansing to Dawes Park the afternoon Tyshawn was shot, then back to Lansing. Data from Morgan’s cellphone showed it following a similar route, and the web browser history showed that just hours after the killing, someone looked up the Facebook pages of Tyshawn’s mother and father as well as news reports about the killing.
