CHICAGO — A judge sentenced a man to 32 years in prison Friday for killing a woman and shooting a tourist during Puerto Rican Fest celebrations in Humboldt Park three years ago.
Nichole Osborne, 37, was walking with her husband, Brenndon Struck, in the 3300 block of West North Avenue when a bullet intended for someone else struck her in the back on June 19, 2021.
“I quickly leaned forward, hoping to hear her breathing,” Struck wrote in a GoFundMe campaign. “Luckily I could hear her breathing slightly. But because of her unfocused eyes, I thought I was losing her at that moment. I started repeating over and over, “Honey, say anything, just talk to me.” Please stay with me! I love you.’ I saw her mouth move, but nothing came out.”
“I stopped talking to 911, held Nichole’s cheek and asked basic questions. She didn’t respond. I panicked, so I asked her to say something. I cupped her cheek with my only free hand and looked her in the eyes… then I lost it. Her eyes had lost focus and she was not moving,” Struk wrote in an email GoFundMe campaign.
Osbourne succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
Days later, Chicago police officers arrested Angel Ayala, now 25 years old, to face charges in the case.
Prosecutors said a car full of Milwaukee residents coming to Chicago to enjoy Puerto Rican Day drove into the 3300 block of West North Avenue as several people walked last around their cars.
Ayala, wearing a purple sweatshirt, white pants and sporting “fuzzy hair,” threw out Latin King hand gestures and demanded to know where the car full of Milwaukeeans came from, prosecutors said. He then pulled out a gun and began shooting at the visitor’s car, hitting a 23-year-old male passenger in the thigh, according to prosecutors.
Another bullet flew across the street and struck Osborne. She immediately fell to the ground.
The shooting was captured on video and Ayala was clearly visible in the footage. Detectives recognized Ayala in the video and tried to arrest him two days later, but he sped away. They caught up with him later that week as he tried to crawl out of the window of his Blue Island home.
Ayala admitted to shooting the gun but said the people in the car shot him first, officials said. But the video footage did not support his claim.
Ayala, who was convicted of aggravated battery in 2019, was also charged with carjacking in 2018, court records show.
On Friday, Ayala pleaded guilty to one count of murder in exchange for Judge Domenica Stephenson’s 32-year sentence. He avoided a 25-year sentence increase by negotiating a plea deal that specified the killing was committed with a “dangerous weapon” rather than a firearm, court records show.
Ayala was missing at the time of the murder in another case.
Nearly a year before the shooting, Chicago police chased a car believed to have been used in a shooting earlier in the day. After the vehicle crashed, all occupants jumped out and ran away. Police arrested one of them, Ayala, and allegedly found a loaded AR-15 rifle behind the chair he had been sitting in.
But prosecutors declined to file a gun crime charge in the case. Instead, prosecutors charged Ayala with reckless endangerment, and he left the police station based on a recognizance tape, according to CPD records.
He never showed up for a single court hearing.
