CHICAGO — A man accused of stabbing four homeless people as they slept on CTA trains and in Grant Park in the summer of 2020, killing one, has been found guilty of murder but mentally ill, according to court records. court records.
Judge William Gamboney announced his findings and imposed a 25-year prison sentence on Bryant McCalip last Tuesday, a day after another man allegedly murdered four homeless people as they slept on a Blue Line train.
McCalip, 32, was found guilty of murdering Aaron Curry, 58, near the Grant Park skate park on July 9, 2020. Chicago police responded to the 1100 block of South Michigan around 9 a.m. that morning after a woman noticed Curry had been in the house. in the same place for more than a day. Officers found Curry dead with multiple stab wounds to his body and neck.
Prosecutors said police found a knife in Curry’s shoulder and the broken handle of the knife was in the grass nearby. Those items were sent to a crime lab for DNA analysis. Unlike three other attacks in which the victims survived, Curry’s killing was not captured on video, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors last week dropped all charges related to the other three attacks.
McCalip had been charged with seriously injuring a 53-year-old homeless man while the victim slept in almost the exact spot where Curry’s body had been found about two weeks earlier. He was also accused of stalking and stabbing two more homeless men as they slept aboard Red Line trains on the South Side on July 15 and August 18, 2020. Those victims also survived the attacks.
Prosecutors charged McCalip in August with seriously injuring a 53-year-old homeless man while the victim slept in almost the exact spot where Curry’s body was found about two weeks earlier. He was also accused of stalking and stabbing two more homeless men as they slept aboard Red Line trains on the South Side on July 15 and August 18. These victims also survived the attacks.
Prosecutors said video showed McCalip approaching the three surviving victims as they slept, staring at them and then repeatedly stabbing them in the neck with a knife he held in his left hand.
Family members reported McCalip after recognizing him from CTA surveillance footage that police released in mid-August.
McCalip “stalked these people as if they were prey and ultimately stabbed them and watched as they suffered,” Judge John Lyke said when he heard prosecutors publicly make their accusations for the first time in August 2020.
“I have been involved with the law for a long time,” the judge continued. “What I just heard, if this is true, this is the height of evil…[McCalip] poses a real and present threat to this community and every human being, every living being with whom it comes into contact.”
