Victim’s mom says guilty verdict for gang member ‘does give us some sort of justice’ seven years after two were fatally shot

A jury took five hours Tuesday to find Hammond Latin Count Eduardo Luciano guilty for the murders of Lauren Calvillo and Christopher White.

While he didn’t pull the trigger, Luciano, 34, was found guilty of their murders by virtue of being part of a racketeering conspiracy, the jury found. He was also found guilty of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribute cocaine and marijuana, and two counts of using a firearm to commit the murders.

A stunned Luciano, dressed in a yellow button-down and black tie with his hair pulled back neatly, hung his head as defense attorney John Cantrell polled the jurors for their individual verdicts. His family unemotionally watched them unanimously answer “guilty” while Luciano’s oldest daughter cried silently.

The family declined comment through Cantrell after the verdict.

Outside the U.S. District Court for the Northern District in Hammond, an exhausted Ollie Hubbard — Lauren’s mom — shouted her relief and gratitude to the skies while her son, Joe, and family and friends smiled alongside her.

“Thank you, God!” she said, beaming. “My god told me it was going to turn out this way, and I listen to my god. We had a deal that if I stopped being angry at Him all the time, He would do this for Lauren. I’m not ashamed.”

Hubbard said it’s been a long, torturous seven years waiting for something to happen at all, and mainly, she’s just glad to have closure for her daughter as well as for White, 33.

“I just thank the City of Hammond, the Hammond Police, the jury and the community for not letting Lauren’s memory go,” Hubbard said. “I’m so grateful to (U.S. Assistant Attorneys) David (Nozick), Caitlin (Padula) and Kim (Schultz) for never giving up, and I’m so glad to have Penny (Robinson, White’s sister) alongside me in this. We are one now.

“(The verdict) doesn’t make the grief any lighter, but it does give us some sort of justice.”

White’s sister and brother, Penny Robinson and Ken Pemberton, talked about other family members’ resemblance to him and how they’re quite sure he’s dancing in heaven right now. They also remembered the hell he went through in the six months before he died.

“He had part of his skull removed to relieve the pressure on his brain because he would’ve died if they didn’t,” Robinson said. “He was paralyzed to the point that he could only move his right arm so much, and they couldn’t take out all the bullet fragments in his chest. He would (lie) there and ask me, ‘Why did they do this to me?’

“It’s so sad all the way around, but my brother has justice now.”

Luciano and other gang members were driving around central Hammond the afternoon of June 29, 2015, when they came upon a vigil for a member of their rival gang, the Little Waco Latin Kings, in the 5500 block of Beall Avenue. He, along with the others, decided they were going to shoot at the vigil because a King who’d allegedly shot the father of a Count was in the crowd, according to testimony over the seven-day trial.

After hatching the plan, two of the members — Ivan “Bola” Reyes and Romeo “Trouble” Castro — drove into the neighborhood, where Castro then shot into the crowd with a .223 rifle from the railroad tracks along Fayette Street, according to testimony. White, who was visiting family on Beall Avenue; and Lauren, who was hanging out on her family’s porch with other little neighborhood kids, were caught in the crossfire.

Lauren died almost immediately after she was shot. She was 16.

Reyes, along with Latin Counts Jeron “Shadow” Williams and Robert “Homicide” Loya, ended up as co-defendants in a RICO case that encompassed Calvillo’s and White’s murders and are awaiting sentencing next month. Reyes pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy and two counts of murder in aid of racketeering; and Loya and Williams, who admitted his involvement and responsibility for their deaths, pled guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

Castro was killed in an unrelated burglary in December 2015.

Federal Judge Jon DeGuilio has tentatively set Luciano’s sentencing for 10 a.m. November 9.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.