SANTA ANA, CA— Opening arguments in a murder case that rocked Orange County began Thursday with a prosecutor telling jurors that the freeway shooting of 6-year-old Aiden Leos was no ordinary case of road rage.
Murder defendant Marcus Eriz, 26, killed Aiden on his way to kindergarten out of “cold indifference” to human life rather than rage, Senior Deputy District attorney Daniel Feldman said in his opening statement in a Santa Ana Courtroom Thursday.
“This is not a road rage case,” Feldman said. “This is an expression by Mr. Eriz of cold indifference. This is an expression by Mr. Eriz of his callous and total disregard for human life.”
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Eriz is on trial for murder in the car-to-car shooting on May 21, 2021 that killed the 6-year-old as he sat in his car seat in the back of his mom’s car on the northbound Costa Mesa (55) Freeway. His driver and girlfriend at the time, Wynne Lee, is being charged with accessory after the fact.
Aiden’s mother, Joanna Cloonan, was taking her son to kindergarten in her Chevrolet Sonic about 8 a.m. when she was cut off by the defendants, who were in a Volkswagen Golf SportWagen, according to authorities.
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Lee, who was driving, swung over out of the diamond lane to the fast lane, punched the gas and then pulled in front of Cloonan, prosecutors said. Lee made a peace sign to Cloonan, according to investigators.
When Cloonan was further north, maneuvering to merge toward the eastbound Riverside (91) Freeway, she passed the defendants and flipped them off with the middle finger, an investigator testified at a pretrial hearing.
She heard her son say “Ow,” and immediately pulled over to see that Aiden suffered a chest wound, prosecutors said.
As his mother pulled over and he was bleeding, an off-duty police officer stopped to try to help, but the boy died.
Feldman, the prosecutor, said in his opening statement that the bullet ripped through the car trunk and back seat, piercing the boy’s liver, lung and heart.
The shooting drew national attention and sparked outrage in the county of 3 million people where residents depend on a vast network of freeways to get to work and school. It also sparked a days-long search for the suspect.
“A monster with a gun murdered a little boy on his way to kindergarten — because he was cut off on the freeway,” Orange County District attorney Todd Spitzer said. “The callousness of this crime is unspeakable, but the fact that this couple continued to hide out in plain sight knowing full well they killed a 6-year-old child while Aiden’s grieving parents pleaded with the killers to come forward is unforgivable.”
Police interviewed Eriz when they arrested him a little more than two weeks later, and he told them he grabbed the gun and fired the shot, knowing it was dangerous, Feldman said.
In an interview with investigators on June 6, Eriz said he “was angry after being ‘flipped off’ by Ms. Cloonan, so he grabbed his loaded Glock 17 9mm and racked a round,” according to court documents filed in 2021.
“He then rolled the passenger window down and took a shot at her vehicle. After shooting the victim, the defendants continued on to the 91 eastbound and on to work in the city of Highland.”
They worked a full day and the couple returned home.
Eriz’s attorney, Randall Bethune, said his client had no intention of killing anyone and didn’t realize he had done so until days later, when a co-worker commented that Eriz’s girlfriend’s car looked like the one that authorities were searching for in connection with the case.
“He had no hindsight, no clue as to the consequence of his actions in the moment,” Bethune said.
In pretrial filings prosecutors revealed that Eriz was suspected in another road rage incident days later.
During the week of May 24-28, the two got into another “altercation on the freeway,” prosecutors said.
“As Wynne Lee was driving on the 91 eastbound on the way to work with defendant Eriz as her front passenger, a driver in a blue Tesla did something to make defendant Eriz angry, acting aggressively,” prosecutors alleged.
“Defendant Eriz again took out his gun and brandished it to the driver of the Tesla. That driver told the defendants that he had called the police and then he drove away.”
A co-worker of Eriz told him on May 28 that it looked like their car was the suspect vehicle police were seeking, prosecutors said.
Eriz “claims that at that time, he looked on the internet and saw the story about Aiden Leos’ death,” prosecutors alleged. “He said he ‘immediately’ knew he was responsible for the boy’s death. He then told Wynne Lee about his revelation.”
For days after the shooting, authorities searched for a suspect and pleaded for the public’s help. They sifted through hundreds of tips and at least half a million dollars in reward money was posted.
According to police, Eriz stashed the vehicle in a relative’s garage, shaved his beard and began pulling back his hair.
The couple also applied for a new job after May 28, prosecutors said.
He and his girlfriend were arrested outside their apartment in the Orange County city of Costa Mesa about two weeks after the shooting. Eriz and girlfriend Wynne Lee, who is charged with being an accessory after the fact and having a concealed firearm in the vehicle, are being tried separately.
Eriz, who is being held without bail, has pleaded not guilty to murder and discharging a firearm at a vehicle. He faces 40 years in prison if convicted.
AMY TAXIN Associated Press, City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.
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