Cops: Here's Why Chicago Boy, 9, Was Executed

A man has been charged with murder in the slaying of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee in Chicago. The Cook County state's attorney's office identifies the boy's alleged killer as Corey Morgan, 27, per the Chicago Sun-Times. The Chicago Tribune calls him "a reputed member of the Terror Dome faction of the Black P Stones" gang. He had earlier been named as a person of interest. Police say Tyshawn was killed in retaliation for the Oct. 13 murder of Morgan's 25-year-old brother; police previously said Tyshawn's father had gang ties but his connection to that killing isn't clear. Morgan's mother was also shot in the arm during the Oct. 13 attack, reports the Sun-Times. Police say Tyshawn was "lured" into an alley on Nov. 2. An autopsy shows he was shot in the right temple, and that the bullet exited his left. He was also grazed in the back, right forearm, and right hand. At a press conference Friday, police said Morgan and one other person are in custody and a third person is still being sought in connection with Tyshawn's murder, CNN reports.

Police say Morgan was first questioned two days after Tyshawn's murder, then arrested on Nov. 17 after he was spotted leaving a Hilton Hotel with another man, Dwight Boone-Doty, 21, who allegedly had a .40-caliber pistol tucked in his waistband. Police pulled the pair over a few blocks away and allegedly found another pistol in a bag Morgan was carrying outside the hotel. Morgan—who was charged with possessing a firearm as a felon, previously convicted of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon—was ordered held on $1 million bail for that alleged crime but later posted the required 10%, a move that "drew gasps from the courtroom gallery," the Sun-Times noted at the time. Morgan (who is a construction worker, per his lawyer) got the $100,000 from his girlfriend, who received a large court settlement in a suit against a hospital, according to police. "He says he had nothing to do with Tyshawn Lee's execution," his lawyer now tells NBC Chicago. "The entire city wants the person who did this caught but it's not Corey." (A Chicago model was killed on the same day Tyshawn was murdered.)