A judge on Wednesday ordered a Costa Mesa couple to stand trial in the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy during a road rage incident on the 55 Freeway last May.
Marcus Anthony Eriz, 25, has been charged with one felony count of murder, one felony count of shooting into an occupied vehicle, and one felony enhancements of the personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
He faces a maximum sentence of 40 years to life in state prison if convicted on all counts.
His girlfriend and 23-year-old driver of the getaway vehicle, Wynne Lee, has been charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact and one misdemeanor count of having a concealed firearm in a vehicle.
She faces a maximum sentence of three years in state prison and one year in the Orange County Jail if convicted on all charges.
They had both pleaded not guilty last June.
Eriz is currently being held without bail. Lee was released on electronic monitoring.
Lee and Eriz are scheduled to be arraigned on April 12 at the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.
Just after 8 a.m. on May 21, 2021, 6-year-old Aiden Leos was shot and killed while in the back seat of his mother’s car while on the 55 Freeway near Chapman Avenue.
Leos was on his way to kindergarten at Calvary Chapel in Yorba Linda. Leos’ mother, Joanna Cloonan, was angry that a speeding vehicle cut her off and so she put her middle finger up as that car passed her, prosecutors said. That’s when Eriz is accused of shooting at the vehicle, killing the 6-year-old boy, as Lee drove away.
The California Highway Patrol launched an intense two-week manhunt for the shooter that spanned Southern California, including issuing a public plea for tips about the whereabouts of the suspects’ vehicle.
The story of the shooting received widespread news coverage and a reward of $500,000 was being offered for information on the suspects.
Eriz and Lee were eventually arrested on June 6, 2021.
“A monster with a gun murdered a little boy on his way to kindergarten – because he was cut off on the freeway,” O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a written statement Wednesday. “The callousness of this crime is unspeakable, but the fact that this couple continued to hide out in plain sight knowing full well they killed a 6-year-old child while Aiden’s grieving parents pleaded with the killers to come forward is [unforgivable].”