Suspects charged in road rage killing of 6-year-old Aiden Leos in California

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. — Prosecutors in California have filed charges against the two suspects arrested Sunday in the road rage killing of 6-year-old Aiden Leos.

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Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said he is filing two charges against Marcus Anthony Eriz, 24: murder with the enhancement of the penalty of discharging a firearm causing death and discharging a firearm into an occupied motor vehicle with the discharge of a firearm as an enhancement. Spitzer said the charges both carry maximum sentences of life in prison upon conviction.

Prosecutors will charge Wynne Lee, 23, with being an accessory after the fact for “willfully harboring, concealing and aiding Marcus Eriz with the intent that Marcus Eriz might avoid and escape detection, and avoid and escape arrest, trial, conviction and punishment for murder.” Lee will also face a misdemeanor charge of knowingly concealing a firearm in her personal vehicle.

Update 12:05 a.m. EDT June 9: A judge agreed with prosecutors’ requests to increase Eriz’s bail from $1 million to $2 million and set Lee’s bail to $500,000, KABC reported. Those bail amounts could be revisited when the the defendants return for an arraignment, which is expected to be June 18, the television station reported.

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Original report: Eriz and Lee remained jailed on $1 million bonds on Tuesday. Spitzer said he plans to ask that a judge increase Eriz’s bail to $2 million. He added that Lee’s bail will likely be reduced, as she is currently being held on a murder charge that prosecutors don’t intend to pursue. He said he will ask that Lee be held on a $500,000 bail.

Authorities arrested Eriz and Lee at their home in Costa Mesa, California, on Sunday to face charges in the May 21 death of Aiden, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Aiden was riding in a booster seat on his way to kindergarten with his mother on May 21 when the road rage incident occurred on California State Route 55, according to officials. Aiden’s mother, Joanna Cloonan, told another driver that a car cut her off as she was switching lanes to get out of the carpool lane and toward an exit, The Los Angeles Times reported. She said she “made an obscene gesture toward the people inside and continued trying to get off the freeway,” according to the newspaper.

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Authorities said at least one shot was then fired at the vehicle that Cloonan was driving, killing Aiden.

“Obviously, we’re now shifting this case from the investigation stage and to arrests to the prosecution of this case in a superior court of law,” Spitzer said Tuesday. “At this time, we have no additional information that we believe would lead to the arrest or prosecution or conviction of individuals as other accessories or accomplices.”

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