Jurors in Orange County found Marcus Eriz guilty Thursday of second-degree murder and other charges in connection with the 2021 shooting death of 6-year-old Aiden Leos.
Eriz, 26 of Costa Mesa, was also found guilty of one felony count of shooting into an occupied vehicle and two felony enhancements of the personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and death.
“The heartbreak of a parent losing a child is so overwhelming that no word exists to describe it,” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer after the verdict.
The jury’s decisions came just one day after deliberations began on Wednesday.
Leos was killed while riding in the back of his mother’s car after a road rage incident between his mother, Eriz and Eriz’s girlfriend Wynne Lee.
Aiden’s mother, Joanna Cloonan, was angry that a vehicle cut her off, so she put her middle finger up as she passed that car, authorities said in June 2021.
Prosecutors said that in retaliation, Eriz, sitting in the passenger seat of the car driven by Lee, pulled a Glock 17 from the driver’s seat back pocket and shot at Cloonan’s vehicle.
That bullet went through the car’s trunk, backseat and through Aiden’s car seat before striking him. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital about 30 minutes after he was shot.
The couple was not apprehended until two weeks later outside their Costa Mesa apartment.
“The short, happy life of Aiden Leos is a life interrupted, abruptly ended by a bullet that pierced Aiden’s heart. The bullet not only killed a little 6-year-old boy; it ripped a hole in the heart of all of Orange County,” Spitzer said.
Eriz is now facing a maximum sentence of 40 years to life in state prison.
Lee, 26 and also from Costa Mesa, is awaiting trial after being charged with one felony count of accessory after the fact and one misdemeanor count of having a concealed firearm in a vehicle.
She is currently out of custody and being monitored on GPS after posting a $100,000 bond in July 2021, according to the DA’s Office
Lee faces a maximum sentence of three years in state prison and one year in the Orange County Jail if convicted on all charges.
