Seven people have been killed in the 4th of July massacre in Highland Park.
The victims include Stephen Straus, 88; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jackie Sundheim, 63; Nicholas Toledo Saragossa, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, and husband and wife, Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37.
On July 6, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office revealed that the seventh victim, Uvaldo, died at Evanston Hospital around 8 a.m. The number of injured victims now stands at 46, ranging in age from 8 to 85. years.
Robert Crimo, 21, appeared in Lake County court Wednesday after being charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. He is expected to face a host of other charges and is being held without bail.
Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the court that Crimo carried out a “calculated and premeditated attack.” He said Crimo confessed to standing on a roof over the parade route and taking aim at people across the street, reloading his Smith & Wesson AR-15 rifle three times.
Police recovered 83 spent shell casings from the roof.
Irina and Kevin McCarthy, aged 35 and 37, were killed in the massacre. Her two-year-old son, Aiden, was pulled from under his father’s body.
Nicolás Toledo, 76, had not wanted his granddaughter to attend Monday’s Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Illinois, because he was in a wheelchair.
Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37, were parents to a two-year-old boy, Aiden, who is now an orphan. He was pulled from under his father’s body and cared for by parade goers.
Nicolás Toledo, 76, was the first victim to be identified. He was a grandfather visiting his family from Mexico. His family said he was shot in the head while he was sitting in his wheelchair, and his blood splattered on them.
Toledo had not wanted to attend the parade, her granddaughter told the New York Times. But because of his disabilities that restricted him to a wheelchair and his family’s insistence that he go, he agreed.
Another victim, Jacki Sundheim was a longtime teacher at North Shore Congregation Israel synagogue. She is survived by her husband Bruce and daughter Leah, the Times of Israel reported.
“There are not enough words to express the depth of our sorrow at Jacki’s death,” the synagogue said in a statement.
Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, who was in the hospital with a gunshot wound to his arm and the back of his head, died Wednesday. His wife, Maria, received fragments to the head and his grandson received a gunshot wound to the arm, but is in stable condition.
On July 6, Katherine Goldstein’s daughter, Cassie, described how her mother was shot in the chest and fell to her death in front of her.
He shot her in the chest and she fell. And I knew she was dead,” Cassie told ‘NBC Nightly News.’ “So I told him I loved her, but he couldn’t stop because he was still shooting everyone next to me.”
Katherine Goldstein, pictured left, was among those killed in the Highland Park parade mass shooting on July 4.
Steve Straus, 88, (left) was one of seven people killed during the 4th of July parade massacre in Highland Park. Eduardo Uvaldo, 65, (right) died Wednesday. The family said he had been shot in the arm and in the back of the head.
A local doctor who rushed to the butcher shop described the shooting victims as “blown up” by the gunman’s high-powered weapon.
Dr. David Baum, a longtime Highland Park obstetrician, attended the parade with his wife and children to see his two-year-old grandson participate. When the shots rang out and others fled, he ran into the fray to try to help the victims.
In an interview with CNN, Baum described seeing victims with “war” and “unspeakable” injuries.
“The people who had left were blown away by the gunfire,” Baum said. “The horrific scene of some of those bodies is indescribable to the average person.”
“Having been a doctor, I’ve seen things in emergency rooms, you know, you see a lot of blood. But the bodies were literally, some of the bodies, had an evisceration wound from the power of this gun and the bullets.
‘There was another person who had an appalling head injury. Indescribable,” she told CNN.
‘And the injuries I saw, I never served, but those are war injuries. That’s what you see in war casualties, not parade casualties,” Baum said.
Baum said there were at least three doctors, a nurse and a nurse practitioner, who joined him in treating the victims. He recalled paramedics covering victims knowing they were dead at the scene.
