The man who admitted to killing seven people and wounding 48 others in the 2022 Highland Park July 4th parade mass shooting will spend the rest of his life in prison.
Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti on Thursday sentenced Robert Crimo III to seven consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole – one for each of the people he killed. Rossetti also sentenced Crimo to an additional 50 years each of 48 counts of attempted murder he faced; those 48 sentences will be served concurrently.
While a life sentence was mandatory for Crimo after he pleaded guilty to multiple murder charges, CBS News Chicago Legal Analyst Irv Miller said holding a full sentencing hearing with evidence from prosecutors and victim impact statements would “basically guarantee that her decision today cannot be appealed by a higher court.”
Miller said sentencing Crimo to consecutive life terms also will make it difficult for a future governor to give him clemency.
“She basically said this defendant has absolutely no chance to be rehabilitated at any time in the future. That basically took the wind out of the sails for any future governor coming in and saying, ‘Oh, he’s rehabilitated. I’m going to let him out of jail,'” he said.
Gunman skipped out on sentencing hearing
Crimo himself was not in court for the two-day sentencing hearing, after also skipping most of jury selection last month before pleading guilty to all charges shortly before opening statements were set to begin. His attorneys also did not present any mitigating factors at the hearing.
As Rossetti was nearing the end of her ruling on Crimo’s sentence, she paused proceedings and left the courtroom after Crimo requested to speak. After about 45 minutes, court resumed after Crimo’s attorneys said he decided not to attend the hearing after all; he had wanted to raise an issue about access to religious books in jail, not about the hearing.
In addition to skipping his sentencing, Crimo also repeatedly failed to attend court proceedings in his case before ultimately pleading guilty. During the three days of jury selection, he was only in court for the first half of each of the first two days, and was not in court at all on the final day of jury selection.
Crimo was asked multiple times to come to court, but repeatedly declined.
He did not make a statement when asked, nor did he issue a written one through his attorneys.
“It is clear that he was unable to confront what he had done,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said.
Friends and family of the victims hugged each other tightly after learning Crimo’s fate, tissues in their hands and tears in their eyes. Many celebrated after the decision, and while they said it cannot give them closure, it does feel like the end of a horrific chapter.
“I don’t have to think about him anymore, I don’t have to worry about him anymore, and me and my husband and my daughter can continue to move forward, and I can continue to heal,” said Liz Turnipseed, who survived being shot at the parade.
She was with her husband and daughter as Crimo was sentenced.
“She knows about it, she knows that there’s a bad man that hurt mommy, and she knows that he’s going to go to jail for the rest of his life, and he wasn’t going to hurt anybody else anymore,” she said.
After her emotional impact statement at the first day of Crimo’s sentencing on Wednesday, Turnipseed said it didn’t matter that the convicted killer was not there to hear it.
“True justice could never be done in this case.”
Those killed in the shooting were Katherine Goldstein 64; Jacquelyn Sundheim, 63; Stephen Straus, 88; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69; Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78; Irina McCarthy, 35; and her husband, Kevin McCarthy, 37.
The McCarthy’s son, Aiden, who was 2 years old on the day of the shooting, was orphaned that day.
“True justice could never be done in this case. For the McCarthy family, justice would be that little Aiden McCarthy would walk out of kindergarten today and see his mother and his father waiting there with open arms to greet him. He was robbed of that by this man,” said McCarthy family attorney Lance Northcutt.
Rinehart said the bravery the shooting victims and their families have shown since the attack “is truly stunning.”
“The amount of trauma and pain that they have gone through in this case is something that is hard to describe. In the courtroom, I used the words ‘oceans of pain, trauma, grief and loss,’ and I don’t even think that word is really adequate to describe the impact that this case has had.”
Rinehart thanked police officers for their fast response to the shooting to catch the gunman, and said the overwhelming evidence detectives gathered ensured Crimo “didn’t have one chance of winning a trial.” He also praised the Highland Park community for the resilience it has shown since the deadly attack.
“Seven people lost their lives, but this community kept going, and there always has been strength in this community and from this group of victims and survivors, no matter how that strength is shown, and that stands in such contrast to what the offender did,” he said.
Deadly attack led to Illinois banning assault weapons
Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said the city continues to stand with the shooting’s victims and survivors.
“Our support remains steadfast, and we will never forget. This sentencing does not mark the end of our efforts, it strengthens our resolve to push for meaningful change,” she said.
The shooting prompted Illinois lawmakers to pass a statewide assault weapons ban in 2023.
Thus far, the ban has survived challenges in the Illinois Supreme Court and federal courts. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up a challenge to the ban while proceedings continue before a federal appeals court in Chicago.
Rotering urged Congress to follow suit with a national ban on assault weapons.
“Our peer nations can’t understand how we put up with this, and I recognize that we as a community, we’re coming together to celebrate freedom, but how free are you if you’re constantly worried that somebody’s going to come unleash 83 bullets on your community in under a minute? That’s not freedom,” she said.
Shooting victims speak out at lengthy and emotional sentencing hearing
On Wednesday and Thursday, survivors of the mass shooting, joined by their families, sat in the courtroom as witnesses answered questions and recounted the day of the deadly attack.
Retired Highland Park Police Commander Gerry Cameron described how he personally took three people to the hospital before leading the investigation into the shooting.
Highland Park resident Dana Ruder Ring shared the story of how she and her family ran for cover in a parking garage after the gunman opened fire. As she and her husband and children were in the parking garage, a woman came up to them holding a 2-year-old boy covered in blood, and handed him to the couple.
As she tried to figure out who the boy was, and where his parents were, he repeatedly insisted his parents would come find him. Later, she learned the boy was Aiden McCarthy, and both of his parents – Irina and Kevin McCarthy – had been killed.
The shooter pleaded guilty last month to 21 counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted first-degree murder just moments before opening statements were set to begin in his trial.
Rinehart said it will be up to the Illinois Department of Corrections to determine where Crimo will be imprisoned. He likely will be transferred from the Lake County Jail to a state prison as early as Friday.