- John H. White/Sun-Times
- Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy announced yesterday that a man has been charged in the slaying of six-month-old Jonylah Watkins and the wounding of her father Jonathan.
When six-month-old Jonylah Watkins was fatally shot in Woodlawn by an unknown offender in March, police quickly pointed the finger in the usual direction. “There’s very strong gang overtones to this particular event,” superintendent Garry McCarthy told reporters at a news conference the day after the shooting.
Jonylah was with her father, 29-year-old Jonathan Watkins, in the front seat of a minivan parked on the 6500 block of South Maryland when the shooting occurred. Police said Jonathan Watkins, who was also shot but recovered, almost certainly had been the offender’s target. They stressed that he was a Gangster Disciple.
Yesterday McCarthy announced that 33-year-old Koman Willis has been charged with Jonylah’s slaying and the wounding of her father. The shooting was in retaliation for a burglary, McCarthy said: a video-game system had been taken from Willis’s Chatham apartment and sold, and Willis had heard that Watkins had been the one who sold it, according to detectives.