June 9 (UPI) — A California man was charged with murder Tuesday in the fatal road rage shooting of 6-year-old Aiden Leos.
The Orange County District Attorney’s Office charged Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24, with one felony count of murder, one felony count of shooting into an occupied vehicle and two felony enhancements of the personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death.
Eriz’s girlfriend, 23-year-old Wynne Lee, was also charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact and one misdemeanor count of having a concealed firearm in a vehicle.
“Six-year-olds should be playing in the sun and eating ice cream, not being memorialized at funerals. Aiden’s life is a life interrupted and of potential that will never be realized,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said.
An Orange County Superior Court judge granted prosecutors’ requests to increase the couple’s bail, setting Eriz’s at $2 million and Lee’s at $500,000.
Eriz faces a maximum sentence of 40 years to life in state prison and Lee faces a maximum sentence of three years in state prison and one year in county jail if convicted on all counts.
The pair were arrested on Sunday following a two-week manhunt in response to the fatal May 21 shooting.
Authorities said Eriz fired into the silver Chevrolet Sonic driven by Aiden’s mother, Joanna Cloonan, on 55 Freeway in Orange, Calif., over “a perceived unsafe lane change,” striking and killing the child in the rear passenger seat.
