CHICAGO — A woman has been charged with murder for allegedly stabbing to death a 7-year-old girl who was walking along a sidewalk in a Chicago neighborhood, police said.
Shavon Gayden, 48, was charged with one felony count of first-degree murder in connection with the death, Chicago police said in a statement Sunday.
Police said the girl was walking in the Chatham neighborhood Saturday morning when a woman carrying an unspecified sharp object approached her and stabbed her multiple times in the back. Bystanders chased after the woman and detained her, police said. Television networks showed a commercial strip lined with a restaurant, a nail salon and a market cordoned off by police tape afterward.
Gayden, who is from Chicago, was initially scheduled to appear for a hearing Monday morning but was hospitalized and was not going to appear, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said in an email. Her injuries were not considered life-threatening.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the child as Edi Mari Hernandez Chacon. She was pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital.
A security photo from a nearby business showed the girl walking hand in hand with an older female when she was attacked, WLS-TV reported.
It was not immediately clear if there was any relationship between the attacker and the girl. Police have not commented on a possible motive for the stabbing and declined Sunday to provide further details.
Attempts to reach members of Gayden’s family by phone were unsuccessful. Matthew Hendrickson, press secretary for the Cook County Public Defender, said that the office was assigned to Gayden at a hearing Monday but declined to comment further.
In a GoFundMe post to raise funds for a funeral, the girl's uncle, Richard Hernandez Chacon, wrote that Edi Mari's “passing leaves an indescribable void and profound grief in all of us who loved her.”
Messages left with Hernandez Chacon and another person believed to be a family member were not immediately returned.
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