A Southern California man was found guilty of second-degree murder Thursday in the 2021 road rage shooting that killed 6-year-old Aiden Leos .
A jury convicted Marcus Anthony Eriz, 26, of Costa Mesa, California, 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. Eriz faces 40 years to life in state prison.
“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,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement Thursday. “While we will never know what Aiden would have become, we know that the pursuit of justice did not end until his killer was captured and this child murderer was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
On May 21, 2021, Aiden was sitting in the backseat of his mother’s car as she drove him to kindergarten when another driver shot and killed him during morning rush hour, authorities said at the time. Aiden was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.