40 years to life for man who killed boy, 6
Marcus Eriz said he had ‘no answer’ as to why he fired into a passing car in 2021.
Marcus Eriz, the Costa Mesa man who claimed not to understand why in 2021 he fired a gun from a car, killing a 6-year-old boy, has received a sentence of 40 years to life in prison.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Richard King on Friday rejected a defense attorney’s plea for leniency on the basis of Eriz’s age — he was 24 at the time of the shooting — as well as the argument that Eriz had suffered childhood trauma.
King said he could find no connection between the defendant’s alleged trauma — which was left unspecified in courtroom arguments — and his decision to fire his Glock 17 into the car the boy was riding in on the 55 Freeway.
“The defendant didn’t commit any crimes until this particular day,” King said. “There was no impulse until this particular day.”
Eriz was in the passenger seat of a Volkswagen on May 21, 2021, with his girlfriend Wynne Lee at the wheel and his loaded, customized gun within easy reach. Eriz claimed he kept the weapon with him because people had been “acting crazy” on the freeways.
They were heading north on the 55 Freeway near Chapman Avenue in Orange during the morning rush hour.
Joanna Cloonan was in her Chevrolet driving her son Aiden Leos, who was strapped into a booster seat behind her, to kindergarten.
By Cloonan’s account, the Volkswagen cut her off, and its driver flashed her a sarcastic peace sign. Cloonan responded by f lashing her middle finger.
At Eriz’s trial in January, there was no dispute that he then grabbed his gun and fired at Cloonan’s car as she drove off. The bullet passed through the trunk and Aiden’s body.
Jurors, who heard a 911 call of Cloonan begging for help, her son dying in her arms, convicted Eriz of second-degree murder, with an enhancement for the use of a firearm.
“I have no answer why,” Eriz told police when asked why he had done it.
Nor were there answers during Friday’s sentencing hearing.
“Whether it was to impress your girlfriend [or] to release your anger, you fired, and that little boy died,” King said.
The judge described Aiden as “the most vulnerable victim you can even imagine” and said the English language was inadequate to capture his mother’s torment.
In a statement he read to the court, Eriz, 27, apologized to the family, asked for God’s forgiveness and said, “I am responsible for everyone’s trauma.”
As a young man, he said,
he lacked discipline and befriended “people with character flaws like mine.”
“I felt drawn to a fast lifestyle,” he said. “Like the friends I chose, I lived for the moment.”
During the 1,042 days he has spent in lockup, Eriz said, he has been reading avidly, including a biography of Socrates, which taught him “the importance of introspecting as that first step toward change.”
His attorney, deputy public defender Randall Bethune, asked King to strike the firearms enhancement and give Eriz probation, saying the killing was “a horrible, horrible mistake” and “absolutely an anomaly as to who Mr. Eriz really is.”
Bethune said Eriz’s years in jail had not left him institutionally hardened.
“He’s still as nice of a guy as when I first met him,” Bethune said. “His goodness is infectious.”
Deputy Dist. Atty. Daniel Feldman, asking for the maximum sentence of 40 years to life, said that the 911 tape conveyed “a depth of pain I have never heard before.”
Feldman said the defendant’s apology sounded sincere, but he had chosen to pull the trigger while never being in danger from the other car.
“He wanted the world to know what he was capable of,” Feldman said. “What he instilled in our community was fear.”
Aiden’s mother chose not to appear in court for the sentencing. At a news conference afterward, Feldman said, “We were very grateful that we could stand for her.”
Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer applauded King for refusing to strike the firearms enhancement on the basis of Eriz’s age but blasted the state Legislature for allowing judges that level of discretion.
“That’s what we are living with in California today,” Spitzer said, denouncing laws enacted in recent years that permit leniency for defendants age 25 and under, which he said originated with “college professors in their ivory towers who study brain development.”
Eriz’s co-defendent, Lee, a resident of Costa Mesa, is charged with being an accessory after the fact and having a concealed firearm in a car. She is out on bail while awaiting trial.