The horrific killing at Highland Park left an infant baby, age 2, orphaned when he was discovered by himself and soaked in blood.
During the attack in the upscale Chicago suburb, which left seven people dead and 46 injured, Aiden McCarthy was pulled out from under his father.
His grandparents, Misha and Nina Levebeg, eventually took him under their wing after strangers took him under their wing.
Kevin McCarthy, 37, and Irina McCarthy, 35, were found to be among those slain during the Fourth of July parade, it was revealed yesterday.
Since then, a GoFundMe page created to assist Aiden’s family with “raising, caring for, and supporting” him has received more than $1,850,000 (£1,500,000) in donations.
According to Irina Colon, the fundraiser’s creator, Aiden is placed in the impossible situation at the age of two: having to grow up without his parents.
The caring members of Aiden’s family will take good care of him, but he still has a long way to go before he can recover, find stability, and eventually adjust to life as an orphan.
He is surrounded by a group of close friends and extended family who will love him and do everything in their power to provide for his every need as he develops.
“On behalf of his family, and with their permission, I am launching this campaign to support him and the caregivers who will be tasked with raising, caring for, and supporting Aiden as he and his support system embark on this unexpected path.
According to Irina, the North Shore neighborhood joined together to “assist a youngster we knew nothing about” and “pray for the safety of his family.”
Will Ackman’s $18,000 donation was the largest so far, and anonymous contributors have also contributed $10,000 and $5,000 each.
When Lauren Silva, 38, and her boyfriend heard gunshots while en route to Walker Bros for breakfast, they turned around and found Aiden.
Silva told the Daily Beast that they arrived at the scene of the shooting from a parking garage a few blocks away.
We were about to open the door to ascend the stairs when we heard it go boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It sounded as though someone was banging on the glass doors.
Silva started to run toward those who were hurt, followed by her partner and his son.
My lover handed me this small boy and told me he was below this father who had been shot in the leg, she recalled.
“I brought the youngster downstairs into the garage,” I said. “They were attempting to stop the bleeding.”
She claimed Aiden was only wearing one shoe and had blood all over his sock. She was able to clean his scrapes and wipe the blood off of him once she got inside the garage.
Later, Silvia gave Aiden to a family with whom she was hiding in the garage; they took him to the hospital and later gave him to the police.
According to Fox 32 Chicago, Dana Ruder Ring uploaded the boy’s original photo online to assist identify him while she was caring for him up to 8 p.m. local time.
Yesterday evening, six of the victims’ identities were made public, bringing the death toll in America’s most recent mass murder to seven.
Seven accusations of first-degree murder have been brought against shooting suspect Robert “Bobby” Crimo III.
After a brief police chase, the musician known as “Awake the Rapper” was taken into custody. He is charged with firing a powerful rifle into the audience from a rooftop around ten minutes into the Independence Day march.
According to investigators, 21-year-old Crimo spent weeks planning the attack. It has since come to light that Crimo was questioned by police in 2019 after making threats to “murder everyone” in his home.
Other victims included 64-year-old Katherine Goldstein, 63-year-old Jacquelyn Sundheim, 88-year-old Stephen Straus, and 78-year-old Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza.
Except for Toledo-Zaragoza, who was visiting family in the city from Morelos, Mexico, all of the named victims were residents of Highland Park.
On what was meant to be a “fun family day,” according to Toledo-23-year-old Zaragoza’s granddaughter Xochil Toledo, he was assassinated.
Toledo’s granddaughter Xochil wrote on a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his burial costs that her grandfather was a “kind man, creative, adventurous and amusing.” “As a family, we are broken and numb,” she continued.
It is well