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The Orange County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday that charges have been filed against the two suspects in the murder of 6-year-old Aiden Lewis on Interstate 55 last month.
Marcus Anthony Erez, 24, is charged with murder and firing a handgun into an occupied vehicle, with reinforcements in sentences for firing a firearm and causing significant bodily injury or death while committing a murder.
Wen Lee, 23, was charged with an accessory after the incident, a felony, allegedly concealing the shooting, and a misdemeanor charge for having a concealed firearm in the vehicle.
They are expected to go to trial on Tuesday afternoon.
The couple were detained Sunday at their Costa Mesa home, more than two weeks after Aiden was fatally shot while riding in a booster seat in the back of his mother’s car. Authorities said the boy was shot in an apparent angry act on the highway in Orange County.
Photo of 6-year-old Aiden Lewis on his memorial service.
(Gina Verazzi/Los Angeles Times)
On the morning of May 21, Aiden’s mother, Joanna Cloonan, told driver Reyes Valdivia that she and her son were in the carpool when another car cut her off as she began switching lanes to get out.
She made a lewd gesture at the people inside the other car and kept trying to get off the highway.
Officials believe the driver of the car that drove Cloonan maneuvered behind her car and someone inside the car fired a gun at her car.
A bullet penetrated Cloonan’s car from the rear, hitting her son’s back.
She stopped and took the boy who was bleeding in her arms until paramedics arrived. Doctors could not save him.
“It could have happened to any of us,” Spitzer said, holding a photo of Aiden during a news conference on Monday. “We all drive on the highways of Southern California. We’ve all been annoyed with other motorists, other motorists have been annoyed with us. I’ve made a few nods at myself. But it has never reached a state of violence, certainly not in my kingdom or yours, the loss of life “.
Los Angeles criminal defense attorney Louis Shapiro said Monday that Spitzer was more likely to file a second-degree premeditated murder charge, which requires the prosecution to prove to a jury that the shooter “acted intentionally with a conscious disregard for human life.”
Authorities believe Lee was driving that day and that Erez fired the shot that killed Aiden. Neither the suspects nor their lawyers could be reached for comment.
Shapiro said it would be difficult to prove first-degree murder because the shooting did not appear to have been premeditated.
California Highway Patrol officials said Monday that they have recovered the gun and the vehicle used in the shooting. A source from the agency said that the car was in the garage of Whittier’s home owned by a relative of Erez and that the relative was far from home.
Further details about Erez and me emerged in the days following their arrest.
Erez grew up in Weaverville near Redding, with his family in the Whittier area. He works in an auto body shop in Corona and often shares content on social media about cars and guns. He posted several photos and videos of himself firing a range of assault rifles and pistols outdoors and at the shooting range. Officials said one of the weapons he displayed was capable of firing the bullet that killed Aiden.
Erez reportedly left the auto body shop in January, but in recent weeks he has texted and asked to get his job back, his former boss told KCBS-TV 2.
Lee grew up in Diamond Bar, attending Diamond Bar High School and Mt. San Antonio Community College.
Officials said surveillance, investigation and advice all played a role in identifying Erez and Lee.
The operation began shortly after the shooting as investigators distributed a photo of a white car that was said to belong to the suspects.
In the weeks that followed, they said, officials received hundreds of calls and emails. The bonus funded by family members, donations, county officials, and local businesses has risen to $500,000.
Describing it as an “intense manhunt,” Don Goodbrand, assistant chief of the CHP’s Frontier Division, said several agencies, including the Highway Patrol, the DA Orange County Bureau and other law enforcement and command officials in Orange County and Southern California, helped with the case.
“Never in my 25-year career have I seen these components work together as aggressively to solve a crime as they did during this investigation,” he said.
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