By Associated Press - Tuesday, December 22, 2020

CHICAGO (AP) - A fourth man was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder in connection with a July Fourth shooting that left a 7-year-old girl dead.

Kevin Boyd, 28, was charged in Natalia Wallace’s death outside her grandparents’ home on Chicago’s West Side. Cook County Circuit Judge Mary C. Marubio ordered old Boyd held without bond.

Prosecutors told Marubio surveillance video captured Boyd’s face as he exited a white sedan and opened fire on a 32-year-old man who was walking in the direction of children playing in a street.

The man targeted in the shooting, who was wounded, identified Boyd as the gunman. A black face mask later found in the rear passenger area of the vehicle was positive for Boyd’s DNA, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy told the court.

Kevin Boyd’s brothers, Terrell Boyd, 30, and Davion Mitchell, 22, were charged last summer with the shooting of Natalia Wallace, along with 33-year-old Reginald Merrill, who is accused of driving the brothers to and from the block. The three previously charged suspects have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges and are being held at the Cook County Jail.

The shooting was related to a gang conflict in the area that also resulted in the murder of another brother of the Boyds and Mitchell five days before the shooting of the girl. The brothers believed someone on the block where the little girl was playing was responsible for their relative’s death, prosecutors said.

Boyd, a father of two young children, has been employed as a dishwasher at Red Lobster, according to his court-appointed attorney.

The shooting of the girl occurred during a bloody July 4 holiday weekend in which 17 people were fatally shot and 70 more were wounded in Chicago.

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