California man sentenced to 40 years to life for deadly freeway taking pictures of 6-year-old boy

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A California man was sentenced Friday to 40 years to life for the deadly taking pictures of a 6-year-old boy who was driving at the back of his mom’s automobile on the freeway, prosecutors stated.

Marcus Eriz, now 27, was sentenced in Orange County Superior Court docket in Santa Ana for killing Aiden Leos in May 2021 whereas the boy was on his approach to kindergarten, the district lawyer’s workplace stated in an announcement.

Eriz was convicted by a jury in January of second-degree homicide and taking pictures at an occupied motorized vehicle.

“What he took was the lifetime of a little bit six-year-old boy and the sense of safety of drivers in every single place who fear that driving on our freeways could possibly be a loss of life sentence, not due to a crash however due to a bullet,” Orange County District Legal professional Todd Spitzer stated within the assertion.

An e-mail message searching for remark was despatched to Eriz’s lawyer, Randall Bethune.

Throughout the trial, authorities stated Eriz and his girlfriend, Wynne Lee, had been heading to work when Lee lower off a automobile pushed by Leos’ mom, who responded with a impolite gesture.

Eriz pulled out a gun, reached out of the window and fired a shot on the mom’s automobile that went by the trunk and pierced Leos’ coronary heart, they stated.

Eriz’s protection argued that he didn’t imply to kill anybody in what started as a street rage incident and stated he didn’t know he had till days later when a co-worker commented that Lee’s automobile seemed just like the one authorities had been trying to find.

The taking pictures shocked the county of three million folks, which depends closely on a community of freeways to get to work and college, and drew worldwide consideration as authorities searched greater than two weeks for the killer.

Authorities arrested Eriz and Lee exterior their house in Costa Mesa after chasing results in the white automobile Lee was driving. Lee has pleaded not responsible to being an adjunct after the actual fact and is being tried individually.