Chicago — A Cook County judge has sentenced a man to 10 years for carjacking an Avondale couple who offered their vehicle for sale on Facebook Marketplace last year.
Malik Shears, 22, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular hijacking in exchange for the sentence from Judge Alfredo Maldonado. He is scheduled to be paroled on January 6, 2027.
The victims offered their car for sale on Facebook, and Shears showed up to take a test drive on the afternoon of March 5, 2022. Prosecutors said the male victim sat in the back seat while his pregnant wife sat in the front passenger seat, and then Shears took the wheel.
After driving a short distance, Shears asked to see the car’s title and then snatched it from the wife’s hands while displaying a handgun. He allegedly took the couple’s phones, ordered them out of the car on the 3700 block of West George, and drove away.
Police tracked the stolen phones to Shears’ house. The next day, he allegedly put his girlfriend’s name on the title of the stolen car. Chicago cops pulled the car over a short time later, with the girlfriend driving and Shears in the passenger seat. Shears allegedly told officers that he paid $3,200 for the vehicle.
No charges were announced against his girlfriend.
Hijackings during test drives are rare, but not unheard of. Data compiled by the Cook County Sheriff’s Office last year showed slightly less than 1% of all hijackings in the county involved social media ruses.
Last month, another Chicago man received a ten-year sentence for carjacking a man in Uptown during a Facebook Marketplace test drive.
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