Gang Member Convicted Of Luring 9-Year-Old Son Of Alleged Rival Into Alley With Juice Box And Executing Him

A suspected Chicago gang member was convicted of first-degree murder on Thursday in the killing of a 9-year-old son of a gang rival. 

Dwright Boone-Doty, was found guilty this week of luring Tyshawn Lee to an alley with a juice box, and then shooting the child in November 2015.

“Even at a time when we’ve become nearly numb to headlines about violence, this case shook us to our core,” Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a statement to Oxygen.com. 

“We grieve for nine-year-old Tyshawn as we continue to hold close those who are laboring in his wake,” she added. “As a mother and prosecutor, I think often about Tyshawn’s 4th grade classmates who returned to school and sat beside an empty desk following this egregious murder and will be graduating 8th grade without their friend on stage later this school year. The trauma is far-reaching and impacts us all, collectively.”

Prosecutors said Boone-Doty, allegedly with the help of associate Corey Morgan, carried out the execution. Morgan’s case is being tried in front of a separate jury, members of whom were sequestered following deliberations on Thursday, CBS News reported. Those deliberations were expected to resume on Friday. 

“While we await the second verdict, we are pleased with the first outcome of this case, knowing that the individual responsible for this heinous, retaliatory attack on a young boy will be held accountable,” Foxx said. “We also thank the members of the jury for their thoughtful deliberation and service.”

Prosecutors claimed that the child’s killing was the product of a bitter, drawn-out gang war. Boone-Doty and Morgan were reportedly members of the Bang Bang Gang/Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones, which reportedly has between 30 and 50 members, according to the Chicago Tribune. 

Weeks before Lee was shot multiple times in a Chicago alley, Morgan’s brother and his mother were injured in a shooting that Boone-Doty and Morgan believed had been carried out by a competing gang faction, which the boy's father, Pierre Stokes, was supposedly connected with, the Tribune also reported.

In retaliation, prosecutors alleged, Boone-Doty and Morgan conspired to target Stokes’ son. The pair found the 9-year-old sitting on a swing set in a park in early November 2015, according to USA Today. Boone-Doty approached the fourth grader and walked him to an alley and unloaded several rounds on the young boy.

“They all intended that harm was to befall Lee that day,” Assistant State’s Attorney Thomas Darman said in court during the trial’s proceedings, according to the Chicago Tribune. “They all knew that he was 9 years old.”

According to former State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, the two gang members had initially schemed to torture Lee and slice off his fingers and ears.

“It was one of the most evil things I’ve ever seen,” the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who found Lee’s body, told the Associated Press. 

Boone-Doty’s DNA was later found on a basketball discovered near Lee’s body, according to CBS News.

During the trial, prosecutors also played a recording of Boone-Doty in prison, where he supposedly brags about the shooting to another inmate, the Washington Post reported. 

“I’m looking at him,” Boone-Doty said in the recording. “We walking — bop. Hit the ground. Bop-bop-bop-bop-bop. I’m laughing.” 

His lawyers had previously downplayed the validity of the recordings, arguing that Boone-Doty was lying in order to score points as a tough guy. 

Boone-Doty faces life in prison, CBS News also reported. His sentencing has been scheduled for Oct. 28.

“We hope that this verdict brings some measure of closure and peace for the family of Tyshawn Lee, whom we will never forget,” Foxx said.