April 23, 2025
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Highland Park parade shooter skips 1st day of sentencing hearing

Robert Crimo III pleaded guilty in March just before opening statements were due to start at his trial

By Barbara Vitello - Daily Herald Media Group
FILE - Visitors pay their respects, Thursday, July 7, 2022, at altars for the seven people killed in the Fourth of July mass shooting in Highland Park. Robert Crimo III, accused of killing seven people and injuring dozens more, including children, at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago in 2022 was scheduled for a court hearing Wednesday, June 26, 2024, when it was possible he would change his not guilty plea, the prosecutor had said. He did not do so.

FILE - Visitors pay their respects, Thursday, July 7, 2022, at altars for the seven people killed in the Fourth of July mass shooting in Highland Park. Robert Crimo III, accused of killing seven people and injuring dozens more, including children, at a Fourth of July parade in suburban Chicago in 2022 was scheduled for a court hearing Wednesday, June 26, 2024, when it was possible he would change his not guilty plea, the prosecutor had said. He did not do so. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File/AP)

The life sentence awaiting the 24-year-old Highwood man who fatally shot seven Highland Park Independence Day parade spectators three years ago is not in doubt. Illinois law mandates he spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty last month.

But before Lake County Judge Victoria Rossetti pronounces the sentence, victims’ family members and survivors of the July 4, 2022 attack have an opportunity to confront the killer who took so much from so many.

He denied them that opportunity. Robert E. Crimo III did not show up for his sentencing hearing Wednesday in Lake County.

He admitted March 3 to 21 counts of first-degree murder and 48 counts of attempted first-degree murder. Authorities say he perched atop a roof along the parade route and firing a military-style, semiautomatic rifle into the crowd below a little after 10 a.m. on July 4, 2022, killing seven people and wounding 48.

Highland Park residents Katherine Goldstein, 64; Stephen Straus, 88; Jacquelyn “Jacki” Sundheim, 63; and Kevin McCarthy, 37, and his wife Irina McCarthy, 35 were killed, along with Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, 78, of Morelos, Mexico, and Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, of Waukegan.

The sentencing hearing, which will likely stretch over several days, began with video taken by spectators that showed the Highland Park High School marching band playing “You’re a Grand Old Flag.”

Dana Ruder Ring testifies Wednesday during the first day of the sentencing hearing of the man convicted of killing seven spectators and wounding dozens more in a mass shooting at Highland Park’s 2022 Independence Day parade. AP

Dana Ruder Ring testifies Wednesday during the first day of the sentencing hearing of the man convicted of killing seven spectators and wounding dozens more in a mass shooting at Highland Park’s 2022 Independence Day parade. AP (Associated Press)

As shots rang out, the video shows panicked spectators “running, yelling, screaming for help,” said retired Highland Park police Cmdr.. Gerald Cameron, one of a half-dozen witnesses who laid the foundation for the victims’ statements to come. Cameron, who drove several survivors to the hospital that day, described victims not breathing and covered in blood.

Dana Ruder Ring, who attended the parade with her husband and three children, described first diving into a group of people sheltering behind a brick pillar and then making their way to the underground garage where the family parked its car.

It was there that Ring encountered a shaken woman carrying a toddler covered in blood and wearing one shoe.

She said, “the blood’s not ours. He’s not mine,” recalled Ring, whose husband took the boy in his arms and went to find his parents. Unable to locate them, the couple took him with them to Ring’s parent’s home where he told them: “Mom and dad are coming to find me soon.”

That boy was Aiden McCarthy, the son of victims Irina and Kevin.

The defendant has been incarcerated in the Lake County jail since his arrest hours after the murders.

Robert E. Crimo III, left, talks to Lake County's assistant public defender Anton Trizna as he appears before Judge Victoria A. Rossetti Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan. Crimo III is charged with killing seven people and wounding dozens more in a shooting at an Independence Day parade in the suburban Chicago town of Highland Park.

Robert E. Crimo III, left, talks to Lake County's assistant public defender Anton Trizna as he appears before Judge Victoria A. Rossetti Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at the Lake County Courthouse in Waukegan. Crimo III is charged with killing seven people and wounding dozens more in a shooting at an Independence Day parade in the suburban Chicago town of Highland Park. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, Pool/AP)

https://www.dailyherald.com/20250423/crime/highland-park-shooter-skips-day-one-of-sentencing-hearing/

Highland ParkLake CountyCrime and CourtsWaukegan