Lyons Appears in Court for Daughter's Murder

A Southside father charged in the murder of his 9-year-old daughter appeared in Cook County Court Monday for a preliminary hearing.

Richard Lyons, 42, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mya Lyons. He also faces a separate count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse linked to a case from 2010 involving a juvenile boy.

But the prosecution on Monday said it wasn't ready to seek an indictment and the judge granded a continuance.

Mya Lyons was found stabbed to death in an alley on July 14, 2008, near her father’s home in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood.

Mya lived with her mother, Ericka Barnes, but was spending the summer with her father. At the time, Lyons told police that he found his daughter’s body in the alley, put her in a van and drove her to Jackson Park Hospital, while his uncle, who is a nurse, tended to her in the back.

Lyons was arrested on a “no-bond warrant” issued by Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas, according to a police report.

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