Second man charged in murder of day care worker in Altgeld Gardens
A second man has been charged with murdering a day care worker as she drove home to Altgeld Gardens after work late last year.
Avion King, 31, and six other gunmen mistook Kimberly Underwood for a rival gang member on Nov. 6, Cook County prosecutors said.
King’s group moved east through the Far South Side housing complex, using hand gestures and pointing their weapons in their search for rival gang members, prosecutors said Wednesday during King’s bond hearing.
Three people in the group fired on 53-yearold Underwood as she parked her car in the 1000 block of East 132rd Street, prosecutors said. King allegedly tried to shoot his AK-47style assault weapon but wasn’t able to.
Underwood, a grandmother of 11, was pronounced dead at the scene. She moved into the apartment about two years earlier after she lost her job as a restaurant manager and could no longer afford her home in Hazel Crest, her sister, Sandra Underwood, told the Chicago Sun-Times last year.
King and the others ran off in different directions, but surveillance video helped Calumet City police identify King as a suspect, prosecutors said. Video also allegedly shows King before the shooting with Devante York, who was charged in Kimberly Underwood’s murder last week.
Cellphone data and a Google search warrant show King’s phone moving through the housing complex at the same time of the shooting, prosecutors said, adding that King has prior convictions for DUI and drug possession.
King, who also lives at Altgeld Gardens, was arrested Monday in the 13100 block of South Rhodes Avenue, Chicago police said.
King has two children, earned a GED and worked as a carpenter but suffers from schizophrenia and depression, an assistant public defender told Judge Wesley Willis.
Willis ordered King held without bail.