Boy, 8, paralyzed in Highland Park Fourth of July parade massacre is ‘hopeless, sad and angry’

Seven people have died in the Highland Park Fourth of July massacre.

The victims include Stephen Straus, 88; Katherine Goldstein, 64; Jacki Sundheim, 63; Nicholas Toledo Zaragoza, 78; Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, and husband and wife, Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37. 

On July 6, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office revealed that the seventh victim, Uvaldo, died at Evanston Hospital around 8 a.m. The number of injured victims now stands at 46, ranging in age from 8 to 85 years old.

Robert Crimo, 21, appeared in Lake County court on Wednesday, after being charged with seven counts of first-degree murder. He is expected to face a slew of other charges and is being held without bail.

Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart told the court that Crimo carried out a ‘calculated and premeditated attack’. He said Crimo confessed to standing on a roof above the parade route and took aim at people standing across the street, reloading his Smith & Wesson AR-15 rifle three times. 

Police recovered 83 spent casings from the roof. 

Irina and Kevin McCarthy, 35 and 37, were the parents of a two-year-old boy, Aiden, who is now orphaned. He was pulled from underneath his father’s body and taken care of by paradegoers. 

Nicolas Toledo, 76 was the first victim to be identified. He was a grandfather visiting his family from Mexico. His family said he was shot in the head as he sat in his wheelchair, his blood splattering on them. 

Toledo had not wanted to attend the parade, his granddaughter told the New York Times. But because of his disabilities that restricted him to a wheelchair, and his family’s insistence of going, he obliged. 

Another victim, Jacki Sundheim was a longtime teacher at the North Shore Congregation Israel synagogue. She is survived by her husband Bruce and daughter Leah, the Times of Israel reported. 

‘There are no words sufficient to express the depth of our grief for Jacki’s death,’ the synagogue said in a statement.

Eduardo Uvaldo, 69, who was in hospital with a gunshot wound to the arm and back of the head, died on Wednesday. His wife, Maria, was hit in the head by fragments, and his grandson received a gunshot wound to the arm but is stable.

On July 6, Katherine Goldstein’s daughter, Cassie, described how her mother was shot in the chest and fell down dead in front of her. 

‘He shot her in the chest, and she fell down. And I knew she was dead,’ Cassie told ‘NBC Nightly News.’ ‘So I just told her that I loved her, but I couldn’t stop because he was still shooting everyone next to me.’ 

A local doctor who rushed into the carnage described the shooting victims as being ‘blown up’ by the attacker’s high-powered weapon.

Dr. David Baum, a long-time obstetrician in Highland Park, was attending the parade with his wife and children to watch his two-year-old grandson participate. When the shots rang out and others fled, he ran into the fray to try to help the victims.

In an interview with CNN, Baum described seeing victims with ‘wartime’ and ‘unspeakable’ injuries.

‘The people who were gone were blown up by that gunfire,’ Baum said. ‘The horrific scene of some of those bodies is unspeakable for the average person.’

‘Having been a physician, I’ve seen things in ERs, you know, you do see lots of blood. But the bodies were literally — some of the bodies — there was an evisceration injury from the power of this gun and the bullets.’

‘There was another person who had an unspeakable head injury. Unspeakable,’ he told CNN. 

‘And the injuries  that I saw — I never served — but those are wartime injuries. Those are what are seen in victims of war, not victims at a parade,’ Baum said. 

Baum said there were at least three doctors, a nurse and a nurse practitioner, who joined him in treating victims. He recalled paramedics covering up victims who they knew were dead at the scene.