Bail denied for Chicago man charged with North Beverly girl’s murder
BY CASEY TONER ctoner@southtownstar.com November 16, 2012 2:14PM
Deon Blandon/ photo from Chicago Police
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Updated: December 19, 2012 1:23PM
A Cook County judge on Friday denied bail for an 18-year-old man charged with the murder of a 16-year-old girl from Chicago’s North Beverly neighborhood.
Deon Blandon is facing first-degree murder charges for allegedly shooting Taylor Fitting in the head while she sat in the back seat of a car about 9:25 p.m. Monday in Chicago’s Roseland community.
Cook County Circuit Court Judge Donald Panarese Jr. denied bail for Blandon at the Cook County Criminal Courts Building at 26th Street and California Avenue in Chicago. Blandon is next due in court Dec. 4 in Room 101.
Police said Tuesday that Taylor, of the 9300 block of South Winchester Avenue, was dropped off by an unknown person at Roseland Community Hospital with a gunshot wound to the head. She was transferred to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where she was pronounced dead at 11:35 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Police said Blandon, of the 11300 block of South Normal Avenue, lives just one block away from where the shooting occurred.
Fitting, who had lived with her grandmother, Susan Tranchita, off and on since birth, left home about 8:45 p.m. Monday, promising to be home early because she had school Tuesday.
Fitting was with five other friends in a dark Cadillac with tinted windows when a bullet flew through an open window in the car and struck her in the face, friends said. The teen didn’t appear to be Blandon’s intended target, friends said earlier this week, but rather was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tranchita said Fitting, a Morgan Park High School student, lived for the moment and had a sharp tongue but was basically a good kid.
Fitting had artistic aspirations. She loved taking photographs and covering the pale blue walls of her bedroom with innumerable scribblings and spray paint.
Contributing: Sun-Times Media
