HIGHLAND PARK, IL — The man accused of killing seven people and wounding nearly 50 others in a mass shooting at the 2022 Highland Park 4th of July parade is expected to plead guilty next week as part of a deal with prosecutors.
Bobby Crimo is set to appear in court Wednesday in Waukegan for a change of plea hearing, nearly two years after he allegedly began shooting from a downtown Highland Park rooftop.
Authorities said he fired nearly 90 rounds into the throngs of paradegoers who had gathered for the town’s first Independence Day parade since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, fatally striking Katie Goldstein, Irina McCarthy, Kevin McCarthy, Stephen Straus, Jacki Sundheim, Nicolás Toledo and Eduardo Uvaldo.
Crimo, 23, who has been in custody since his arrest hours after the parade shooting, had been scheduled to face trial in February 2025. He had previously entered a plea of not guilty to the 117 felony counts he faces, including 21 counts of first-degree murder.
“The case will be up on June 26 for a possible change of plea,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said. “We have been updating and supporting the victims as the situation has been developing.”
Under Illinois law, a conviction for murdering more than one person carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
Authorities have said that Crimo confessed to the shooting shortly after he was taken into custody following an hourslong manhunt — during which he allegedly went to the Madison, Wisconsin area and buried a cell phone there.
That confession would have become part of the public record if Crimo’s father had taken his reckless conduct case to trial.
But instead of fighting felony charges he faced for signing off on his troubled son’s application for a firearm owners license, the father of the accused mass shooter took a plea deal that saw him spend less than a month behind bars.
While his father was still serving his sentence in Lake County Jail, Crimo dismissed his public defenders in December and invoked his right to a speedy trial.
His trial, which his lawyers and prosecutors had agreed to schedule in February 2025, was briefly moved forward by 12 months.
But after Crimo requested the return of the court-appointed attorneys’ representation, Lake County Circuit Judge Victoria Rosetti agreed to the restoration of the originally agreed-upon trial date over Rinehart’s objection.
After holding a community walk instead of a traditional parade last year, the city of Highland Park this year has organized a parade along a modified route that avoids the site of the shooting, the state’s deadliest until a Jan. 21 spree in Joliet
The start time for Highland Park’s 2024 4th of July parade has also been shifted to 1 p.m. to allow for an indoor, registration-only remembrance event set to place at Edgewood Middle School, 929 Edgewood Road.
Post a Comment