Second man charged in murder of daycare worker in Altgeld Gardens
Avion King | Chicago police
CHICAGO - A second man has been charged with murdering a daycare worker as she drove back home to Altgeld Gardens after work late last year.
Avion King, 31, and six other gunmen mistook Kimberly Underwood for a rival gang member on Nov. 6, Cook County prosecutors said.
King’s group moved east through the Far South Side housing complex, using hand gestures and pointing their weapons in their search for rival gang members, prosecutors said Wednesday during King’s bond hearing.
Three people in the group fired on 53-year-old Underwood as she parked her car in the 1000 block of East 132rd Street, prosecutors said. King allegedly tried to shoot his AK-47-style assault weapon but couldn’t.
Underwood, a grandmother of 11, was pronounced dead at the scene. She moved into the apartment about two years earlier after losing her job as a manager of a restaurant and could no longer afford her home in Hazel Crest, her sister, Sandra Underwood, told the Chicago Sun-Times last year.
King and the others ran off in different directions, but surveillance video helped Calumet City police identify King as a suspect, prosecutors said. Video also allegedly shows King before the shooting with Devante York, who was charged in Kimberly Underwood’s murder last week.
Cellphone data and a Google search warrant show King’s phone moving through the housing complex at the same time of the shooting, prosecutors said, adding that King has prior convictions for DUI and drug possession.
King, who also lives Altgeld Gardens, was arrested Monday in the 13100 block of South Rhodes Avenue, Chicago police said.
King has two children, earned a GED and worked as a carpenter, but suffers from schizophrenia and depression, an assistant public defender told Judge Wesley Willis.
Willis ordered King held without bail. King is expected back in court June 8.