Melissa Ortega

Melissa Ortega, an 8-year-old Hispanic girl, had moved to Chicago from Mexico with her mother just a few months before she was killed. They arrived in August 2021, excited to build their American Dream. Melissa was a student at Emiliano Zapata Academy and, according to her family, was a girl full of hope who wanted to learn English, experience Chicago snow, get a stuffed animal from Build-a-Bear and make TikTok dances with her friends.

On the afternoon of January 22, 2022, Melissa was walking hand-in-hand with her mother in the city’s Little Village neighborhood. As they crossed the street near West 26th Street and South Pulaski Road, a gunman dressed in black emerged from a nearby alley and began firing. The shooting was gang-related, and the intended target was a rival gang member who was walking on the street. When the shots rang out, Melissa and her mother started to run. In the chaos, Melissa was struck twice in the head by stray bullets. Her mother felt her daughter go limp beside her. The intended target was shot in the back but survived.

Investigators used police and private surveillance video to track the offenders, who fled in a Toyota Camry. Two days after the shooting, police pulled over the car and arrested the driver, 27-year-old Xavier Guzman. Inside the car, they found a loaded gun that ballistics testing matched to the shell casings recovered at the scene. A day later, police arrested the alleged shooter, 16-year-old Emilio Corripio. Prosecutors said that after the shooting, Corripio and Guzman went to a Subway to buy sandwiches, laughing as they ate.

Corripio and Guzman were both charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder, with Corripio being tried as an adult. In a statement read to the public, Melissa’s mother, Araceli Leanos, offered forgiveness to the teenage shooter. “You were a victim, too,” she said. “As a 16-year-old, the community failed you, just like it failed my precious baby.” The city was shaken by the tragedy, and a memorial of flowers and teddy bears grew at the site where Melissa died.

The case concluded when both men pleaded guilty to murder. In March 2025, Emilio Corripio pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Two months later, in May 2025, Xavier Guzman pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.