Larry Luellen Jr. Charged In Frances Colon's Shooting Death In Chicago

Charges Filed In Teen Honors Student's Shooting Death

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Murder charges have been filed in the shooting death of Frances Colon, an 18-year-old Robert Clemente High student who was that Chicago school's third student killed in shootings this school year.

Larry Luellen Jr., 34, was ordered held without bond Saturday on the charge that he gunned down Colon in the city's Humboldt Park neighborhood around 7 p.m. on Feb. 15. Police say they do not believe the teen was the intended target of the shooting, ABC Chicago reports.

Luellen lives in the 3900 block of West Division Street, near the 1100 block of North Pulaski Road, where Colon was found with a fatal gunshot wound to her back on a sidewalk last week, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Colon was an honors student and a senior at Clemente. She had been named the school's "Student Of The Month" several times and reportedly had dreamed of attending college. As DNAinfo Chicago notes, 16-year-old Jeffrey Stewart was fatally shot on the same block as Colon in December. Rey Dorantes, 14, was killed in January.

"I'm sick of it," Clemente principal Marcey Sorensen told the Tribune last week. "How many more kids have to die before we do something?"

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, investigators believe the intended target of the suspected shooter was the 28-year-old son of a West Side pastor. The pastor previously told the paper he was urging his son to aide police in their investigation despite his previous refusal to do so.

The fatal shooting of Colon -- as well as the slaying of Janay McFarlane, another Chicago 18-year-old -- took place the same day President Obama spoke in Chicago about gun violence. McFarlane was laid to rest in a funeral service Friday morning.

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