Crime & Safety
Woman Charged With Murder In Fatal Stabbing Of 7-Year-Old Girl: Police
The woman, who was threatening a worker in a nearby business moments before the stabbing, has a violent history, the Sun-Times reported.
CHICAGO — A 48-year-old Chicago woman is charged with first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of a 7-year-old girl over the weekend on the city’s South Side, according to authorities.
Shavon Gayden, of the 8700 block of South Constance Avenue, is accused of attacking Eddimar Hernández Chacón shortly before noon Saturday while the girl was walking south in the 8600 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue, according to police. The woman approached the child with a sharp object and stabbed her repeatedly in the back, police said.
Bystanders detained the woman, who was hurt in the process and was taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, according to police, who said the woman was brought into law enforcement custody.
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Gayden was initially scheduled to appear for a hearing Monday morning but was hospitalized and was not going to appear, the Cook County State's Attorney's Office said in an email.
The child was pronounced dead at Comer Children’s Hospital, police said.
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“Her passing leaves an indescribable void and immense pain for all of us who loved her,” her uncle, Richard Hernández Chacón, wrote in Spanish on a GoFundMe webpage started to pay for her funeral services and translated by Patch using Google Translate.
The girl had been accompanied by her 17-year-old sister, who was holding her hand, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, which reported that Gayden had been threatening a salesperson in a nearby business moments before the stabbing.
Gayden in recent years has pleaded guilty to charges in one case in which she hit a CTA employee and threatened to shank her, and in another in which she attacked a shelter worker, the newspaper reported.
Gayden's mother told WLS that "the little baby didn't deserve it" and her daughter "was not in her right mind."
"I tried," the woman, who asked that WLS not use her name and image, told the outlet. "I tried to help us but I needed help and I couldn't get it."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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