White/Caucasian male Nathaniel Alexander Pena, age 22, died on June 18, 2018, in Bloomington, Illinois, where police found three men shot to death at an apartment at 311 Riley Drive.
The victims were identified as 22-year-old Corey Jackson, 22-year-old Nathaniel Alexander Pena, and 33-year-old Juan Perez-Macedo, all of Bloomington.
A four-year-old boy, identified in coverage as the child of 22-year-old Nathaniel Alexander Pena, was also shot; he was airlifted to a Peoria hospital and
stabilized, and later reporting noted he was left paralyzed.
Authorities initially released few details as the community absorbed the shock of the triple homicide.
In the days that followed, investigators worked to identify a suspect.
On July 3, 2018, police named 21-year-old Sydney Mays Jr. as the suspect in the June 18 shootings and announced multiple charges, including six counts of first-degree murder, two counts of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm, and aggravated battery.
By October 2018, after his arrest, a judge set Mays' bond at $7 million as the case moved into the courts.
Prosecutors later argued that Mays carried out the killings to steal money and drugs, describing a targeted attack that began at the apartment where 22-year-old Nathaniel Alexander Pena lived.
During closing arguments in early 2021, the state characterized Mays as a rival dealer who went to the Riley Drive residence to rob and kill Pena.
In 2021, a judge sentenced Mays to life in prison on three counts of murder and related charges in the triple slaying of 22-year-old Nathaniel Alexander Pena, 22-year-old Corey Jackson, and 33-year-old Juan Carlos Perez-Macedo, while the child wounded in the gunfire—22-year-old Nathaniel Alexander Pena's son—continued living with the consequences of paralysis.
