On a Tuesday afternoon in Detroit, Michigan, the lives of several families were irrevocably shattered by a burst of gunfire rooted in gang rivalry. On December 1, 2015, 21-year-old Stevan Henderson had just picked up some children from school and pulled into the parking lot of a liquor store on the city's east side, at the corner of Troester and Hayes streets. In the passenger seat of his car was 13-year-old Aaliayah Thomas.
Two other children, a 7-year-old boy and another 13-year-old girl, were sitting on the hood of the vehicle. It was around 4:30 p.m. when two men approached the car and opened fire.
The brazen attack sent a wave of panic through the area. As the shots rang out, Henderson attempted to speed away, but in the chaos, he crashed into a building across the street. The two children on the hood of the car were thrown from the vehicle and sustained serious injuries, with one being run over. Inside the car, both Stevan Henderson and Aaliayah Thomas had been fatally wounded. While Henderson was the intended target of the shooting, Aaliayah was an innocent bystander caught in the deadly crossfire.
The investigation into the double homicide soon revealed that it was not a random act of violence. Authorities identified the gunmen as members of the notorious '6 Mile Chedda Grove' street gang, and the motive was a feud with a rival gang to which Stevan Henderson allegedly belonged. The two men who carried out the shooting were identified as Edwin 'Edboy' Mills and Carlo Wilson. Their disregard for the lives of the children present during the attack underscored the senseless brutality of the crime.
In 2016, a significant breakthrough in the case came when a federal indictment was brought against eleven members of the 6 Mile Chedda Grove gang on racketeering charges, which included murders, assaults, and drug trafficking. This broader investigation was crucial in dismantling the gang's operations and bringing those responsible for Henderson's and Thomas's deaths to justice. After his arrest, a search of Mills's belongings uncovered a cache of weapons, including two AK-47 rifles.
Both Edwin Mills and Carlo Wilson eventually pleaded guilty to the murders. In exchange for their pleas, they were each sentenced to 25 years in federal prison. The sentencing of Mills and Wilson marked the conclusion of a long and painful chapter for the families of the victims and the community. By the time of their sentencings, all eleven indicted members of the 6 Mile Chedda Grove gang had been convicted and were behind bars, a testament to the dedicated efforts of law enforcement to quell the gang violence that had claimed the lives of a young man and a child.
