19-year-old charged in triple murder outside Chatham bakery
BY KIM JANSSEN Staff Reporter kjanssen@suntimes.com May 27, 2012 7:54PM
Updated: May 27, 2012 8:01PM
Three months after prosecutors dropped charges against a South Side teen in a November 2011 triple murder case, another teen has been charged with the crime.
Aaron Barnes, 19, of the 9000 block of South Jeffery, turned himself in to police on Friday after learning that he was wanted on a murder warrant.
He allegedly shot dead Chanda Thompson, her pal Cortez Champion and boyfriend Shawn Russell, all 22, outside a Chatham Bakery on Nov. 5.
Prosecutors initially charged 17-year-old Nicko Grayson with the murders, alleging he’d run up to Thompson’s vehicle in the 400 block of East 87th Street and kept firing, killing all three passengers inside.
But the Cook County State’s Attorney dropped the charges against Grayson in February, saying they’d since gathered “additional information” that showed he was not the shooter. Several witnesses have now identified Barnes as the gunman, according to a police report.
After speaking with police, Barnes’ family convinced him to turn himself in to a South Side police station on Friday, police say. He was held Sunday on a no bail warrant.
Thompson was about to buy her 2-year-old daughter a birthday cake at A Piece of Cake bakery when the fatal shots rang out, relatives said following the shooting last year.
