A man from Harvey has been sentenced to 35 years in prison in connection with a carjacking and shooting that left an Aurora woman permanently paralyzed in 2021.
Edward J. McGee, 27, agreed to the prison sentence in connection with a guilty plea to aggravated vehicular hijacking, Kane County court records show.
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McGee was one of four people who police say carjacked a man in DeKalb County in 2021 and then stopped in Aurora, looking to take another car. Meanwhile, a woman had just dropped her two sons off at her parents’ house and was running some errands when she stopped for something to eat at a Wendy’s in Aurora at around 4 p.m. Jan. 16, family friends previously told The Beacon-News.
She was listening to an audiobook while eating in the restaurant’s parking lot on the 1200 block of North Orchard Road when a Ford Escape pulled up and at least two men surrounded her SUV, police previously said.
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The woman was pushed over the center console, shot in the spine and forcibly pulled from her vehicle as the four men, including McGee, stole her car, police said.
A teenager, of Harvey, is accused of firing a handgun at the woman, striking her in the back. She was left lying in the parking lot with a shattered vertebra, leaving her paralyzed with a bullet still lodged in her spinal cord.
Shortly after, her vehicle was used in a carjacking in Lansing and was recovered on Jan. 20 in Harvey with several bullet holes on the inside and outside of the vehicle, officials said.
The teenager was later charged as an adult and Darrel Frazier, of Lansing, was also charged. Both still have ongoing cases. A fourth suspect in the carjacking was shot and killed during a vehicular hijacking in Lansing later that month, officials said.
McGee will have to serve at least 85% of his sentence before he is eligible for parole, court records show. He received credit for 550 days he spent in the Kane County Jail.
