CHICAGO 08/17/2017,
04:10pm
As quadriplegic Lavatus McCullough’s health took a turn for the
worse last month, prosecutors moved to up the charges against the woman who had
shot him in the head in Logan Square nearly a year earlier.
Last week, after a year on a ventilator, McCullough slipped
into a coma and died, prompting Cook County prosecutors to again upgrade the
charges against his 29-year-old girlfriend, Samantha Santiago, to first-degree
murder from attempted murder.
Santiago,
who had been held in jail in lieu of $950,000 bail on the attempted murder
charge, was ordered held without bail at a hearing Thursday at the Leighton
Criminal Courthouse. She had previously been charged with aggravated battery in
connection with the shooting.
Despite his injuries, McCullough had on multiple occasions
identified his former girlfriend, Santiago, as the person who shot him.
McCullough and Santiago were dating, and Santiago’s
9-year-old son called McCullough his step-father, Assistant State’s
Attorney Jamie Santini said.
On July 31, 2016, Santiago and her son were with McCullough
at an apartment in the 2300 block of North Kedzie, when Santiago told the boy
to go downstairs.
A minute later, the boy heard a “loud boom” from upstairs, and
Santiago came down and said it was time to go, Santini said. Santiago called
911 on her cell phone, telling dispatchers “He’s trying to kill me and my son,”
before hanging up.
Police arrived to find McCullough facedown in the upstairs
bedroom, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head, Santini said. The entry
wound was directly under McCullough’s chin and the bullet exited at the base of
his skull.
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