A 48-year-old Illinois woman is accused of randomly attacking and killing a 7-year-old girl, allegedly stabbing the child in the back multiple times as she walked with her older sister on a Chicago sidewalk.
Shavon Gayden was taken into custody immediately after the incident and charged with one count of first-degree murder in the death of Eddimar Paola Hernández Chacón, authorities announced.
According to a press release from the Chicago Police Department, Gayden walked up to the girl shortly before noon Saturday in the 8600 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in the city’s Chatham neighborhood, pulled out a sharp object and stabbed her.
“The offender approached from the south and, unprovoked, produced a knife and began stabbing the victim,” officers wrote in a police report obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Witnesses intervened and detained Gayden until officers arrived, police said. She was reportedly injured during the confrontation and taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries before being placed in police custody. That several bystanders chased her down, and one of them struck her with jumper cables, knocking her down before several people subdued her.
“He whacked her with it,” a witness told the station, referring to the bystander with the jumper cables striking Gayden. “She fell; he whacked her again. Then they just started dropping the hammers on her.”
Eddimar was taken to the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital, where medical staff pronounced her dead at 1:01 p.m., the Sun-Times reported. The newspaper said officers arriving at the scene found the girl bleeding on the sidewalk as a crowd gathered around her. They applied pressure to her wounds while trying to get an ambulance to the location, which arrived about 10 minutes later.
Surveillance footage obtained by investigators showed Eddimar walking hand-in-hand with her older sister shortly before the attack. Investigators recovered two knives from Gayden’s purse, while a third knife believed to have been used in the stabbing was found between the attack site and where she was subdued, according to CWBChicago.
On Sunday, Eddimar’s family, friends and community members gathered for a vigil at the spot where she was killed. Relatives remembered her as a happy child who loved to draw, play with her siblings and wait by the window for her parents to return from work.
Her mother, Estefany Hernandez, called for justice. “My daughter’s death should not be left like this,” Hernandez said, according to WLS. “There must be justice for my little girl. She wasn’t bothering anyone.”
Police have not released a possible motive. Ald. Michelle Harris said Gayden had allegedly been involved in an altercation with employees at a nearby wireless store before the stabbing, though police have not said whether the incident was connected.
“No child should ever have to experience violence or fear while simply walking down the sidewalk,” Harris said in a Facebook post. “I also want to recognize and thank the bystanders who quickly intervened — helping to detain the suspect and get assistance on the way. Their quick actions may have prevented further harm.”
Court records reviewed by CWB show Gayden pleaded guilty in November 2024 to aggravated battery of a CTA bus driver and received two years of probation. She was arrested the following month again on misdemeanor battery and assault charges, later pleaded guilty in July 2025 and received court supervision.
CWB also reported that an arrest warrant from February 2025, issued after she failed to appear for a status hearing in the probation case, remained active when she was arrested Saturday. Gayden is scheduled for a detention hearing Monday at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.