An Evanston man gunned down a 15-year-old boy in an alley near Lincoln Square during a possible marijuana rip-off earlier this year, according to allegations made in court today.
Chicago police arrested Eric Gunn, 21, at his home Friday, and prosecutors laid out the state’s first-degree murder allegations against him during a bond court hearing Sunday.
Around 9:30 p.m. on March 16, Gunn asked a woman to drive him and his brother to a location so they could get some pot for her to buy, Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Cunningham said. Gunn allegedly gave the woman directions and eventually told her to stop when they came upon 15-year-old Esteban Luvianos standing in an alley on the 2000 block of West Farragut.
Gunn got out of the woman’s minivan, and surveillance video shows a man, allegedly Gunn, struggling with Luvianos for control of a bag. Gunn then fired a single shot, striking the teenager one time in his face, Cunningham said.
The woman allegedly told police that she heard a gunshot, and Gunn jumped back into her vehicle, ordering her to “Go! Go! Go!” According to Cunningham, she dropped Gunn and his brother off at their home after they sold her the marijuana.
Luvianos was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police contacted the woman after identifying her father as the owner of the minivan seen in surveillance videos. She directed police to Gunn’s Snapchat account, where investigators allegedly found photos of Gunn posing with a handgun on the day of Luvianos’ murder.
Gunn’s Snapchat account pinged his phone location along a path that tracks closely to the route the woman drove to and from the murder scene, Cunningham said.
Two days after the murder, police recovered a handgun in an unrelated matter that preliminary lab tests matched with “high confidence” to a shell casing found at the murder scene, according to Cunningham. The gun bears a “strong resemblance” to the weapon Gunn posed with on Snapchat, she said.
Gunn, who was himself shot in April, is a Spanish Gangster Disciple street gang member, Cunningham alleged.
Judge David Navarro ordered Gunn held without bail.
