A man accused of providing a gun to his niece that was used to kill a teen girl in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood has been found guilty of murder.
Donnell Flora, 27, was found guilty of first-degree murder as well as attempted murder and aggravated battery in the death of 14-year-old Endia Martin on Saturday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Flora was previously charged with murder and attempted murder for allegedly giving his then 14-year-old niece the loaded gun used in the April 2014 death of Martin.
The shooting occurred as Flora's niece and the intended target were engaged in a fight sparked by an ongoing dispute on social media. Flora's now 16-year-old niece is awaiting trial on murder charges in Juvenile Court.
In an opening statement Tuesday, Assistant Cook County State's Attorney Athena Farmakis said Flora's actions went "way beyond being irresponsible."
Defense attorney Patrycja Karlin said her 27-year-old client, who was paralyzed from the waist down in a 2012 shooting, "didn't want anyone to get shot."
Flora, who uses a wheelchair after he was shot in the back in 2010, met his niece in the 900 block of West Garfield Boulevard on April 28, 2014, where Martin was shot to death, prosecutors previously said. He brought the .38-caliber revolver to the girl knowing there would be a fight.
The accused shooter’s mother has said that her daughter was goaded into pulling the trigger. She also said previously that her daughter felt pressured to use the gun to settle what has been described by police and people who knew both girls as a feud over a boy that began on Facebook.
Before prosecutors rested their case Thursday, they presented an interrogation video in which a crying Flora changed his stories several times but admitted he gave the girl the gun but said “it wasn’t supposed to be loaded.”
