It was one of those cases that gripped the city; August 2014 when three-year-old McKenzie Elliott was playing on her porch in Waverly when she was killed by a stray bullet in what police said was a shootout.
The case went unsolved for some time but as the current U.S. Attorney says, it inspired local and federal law enforcement to get justice.
"This was a case that meant a lot to my predecessor Mr. Rosenstein primarily because it galvanized the city and galvanized law enforcement because of the senseless death of 3-year-old McKenzie Elliott"
U.S. Attorney Robert Hur announced today that 7 of the 11 members of the Old York Money Gang have pleaded guilty, five this month alone.
That still leaves four members of that gang set to stand trial next month on federal drug and racketeering charges, including the shootout and turf battle that claimed a toddler's life.
It was that outrage Hur says that helped motivate local and federal law enforcement to piece together and bring a case that now has more than half its defendants pleading out before trial.
"The satisfaction…you know we haven’t done complete justice yet, we still have four defendants left in the case, but in order to try and solve murders like this one, try to give law abiding citizens who want nothing more than violence to be gone from their neighborhoods. That is enormously satisfying."
The remaining four defendants are scheduled to stand trial in front of Judge George Russell beginning November 5th.
