Jurors convicted Marcus Anthony Eriz of shooting and killing Aiden Leos in a road rage incident. (Mug shot: the Orange County, Calif. District Attorney’s Office; image of Leos: screenshot from KABC-TV)
The man who stole a young boy’s life in a petty road rage incident learned his fate in a hearing on Friday.
Marcus Anthony Eriz, 27, was sentenced in California to 40 years-to-life behind bars for killing Aiden Leos, 6, according to a prosecutors’ statement obtained by Law&Crime.
Eriz was riding in the back of a Volkswagen SportsWagen on the morning of May 21, 2021 while Wynne Lee, 26, drove on the 55 Freeway, authorities say. Meanwhile, Aiden’s mom, Joanna Cloonan, was driving the child to kindergarten. According to authorities, Lee cut off the mother, who flipped a bird at the Volkswagen Golf SportWagen.
In response to the middle finger, Eriz took a gun and fired at the mom’s car, striking Leos. Hearing her son cry out in pain, Cloonan stopped her vehicle, took the boy out of his car seat, and called 911.
Aiden died at the hospital.
“The depth of pain of a mother desperately trying to find some way to help her little boy as he lay dying is excruciating,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said. “The day Aiden was murdered, his car seat meant to protect him from violent car crashes couldn’t protect him from the bullet that ripped through the back of his car seat and through his heart. The actions Marcus Eriz took were his and his alone and as a result of those actions Aiden’s loved ones will never again hear Aiden’s laughs, see his smiles, or feel his hugs. Marcus Eriz pulled out his gun and fired it into a moving car because he wanted to world to know what he was capable of — and what he took was the life of a little six-year-old boy and the sense of security of drivers everywhere
who worry that driving on our freeways could be a death sentence, not because of a crash but because of a bullet. I am grateful Judge King realized that this wasn’t a horrible mistake; this is a cold-blooded murder who is more focused on his life after prison rather than the little boy whose life he ended before it even began.”
The murder launched a manhunt that ended with Eriz and his alleged driver in custody. Jurors convicted him in January of second-degree murder, shooting into an occupied vehicle, and two felony enhancements of the personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death.
Lee faces trial for felony accessory after the fact and misdemeanor having a concealed firearm in a vehicle.
More Law&Crime coverage: White man convicted for using truck to kill Black man in targeted race-fueled road rage attack ‘motivated by hate,’ DA says
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