Highland Park parade shooter Robert Crimo III sentenced to life in prisonon April 25, 2025 at 9:45 am

MAK Gojar

11 months ago

Robert Crimo III has been sentenced to life in prison in connection with the Highland Park parade shooting. The judge gave Crimo seven sentences of life in prison without parole for each of those killed on July 4, 2022.

WAUKEGAN, Ill. (WLS) — Robert Crimo III has been sentenced to life in prison in connection with the Highland Park parade shooting. The judge gave Crimo seven sentences of life in prison without parole for each of those killed.

The people of Highland Park have been waiting 1,025 days for this moment. The survivors say it’s been a journey filled with anxiety.

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The judge first said “This court has no words that are adequate to describe the pain and horror of that July 4th” before giving Crimo seven life sentences for each murder to be served consecutively, and 48 50-year sentences for each attempted murder to be served concurrently. Crimo will have no chance of parole.

The shooting survivors have spent nearly three years recovering from physical injuries and mental trauma, but now some peace as Crimo will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Highland Park parade shooting survivors reacted after gunman Robert Crimo III was sentenced to life in prison.

Liz Turnipseed, who was wounded in the parade shooting, spoke after the sentencing.

“Today was the culmination of such a long journey that started on July 4th 2022,” Turnipseed said. “While I don’t have closure, it’s closing a chapter on this part of our lives. I don’t have to think about him anymore.”

Turnipseed was at the parade with her daughter and husband when she was shot in her pelvis. She’s grateful to be one of the survivors of the mass shooting that killed seven people and injured 48 others, but it’s led her to a long, painful recovery that continues to this day.

“I have a now six year-old, and I can’t run,” Turnipseed said. “If I’m in a lot of pain, I can’t get down and play dolls with her… it means my husband has to take on other responsibilities.”

Turnipseed and many others have seen their day to day lives shift dramatically since that mass shooting. But with that trauma also comes community.

“It’s amazing how you go through something traumatic like this and it builds these relationships and friendships with people you might not otherwise get to know or cross paths with,” Turnipseed said.

Ashbey Beasley said it is the closing of a very difficult chapter.

“I think we just all held our breath just to make sure that he would never, ever be free again and now that’s happened, we can exhale,” she said.

The community has also rallied around Aiden McCarthy, the little boy who was just two years old when his parents were shot and killed at the parade. The family’s attorney Lance D. Northcutt spoke Thursday, saying true justice could never be found in this case.

“For the McCarthy family justice would be that little Aiden McCarthy would walk out of kindergarten today and see his mother and father waiting with open arms to greet him. He was robbed of that,” Northcutt said.

Crimo pleaded guilty in February just as the trial was set to begin, but prosecutors are confident the result would have been the safe if the case had gone to trial.

“Law enforcement made sure that he didn’t have one chance of winning at trial,” Lake County State’s Attorney Eric Rinehart said.

Highland Park first responders reacted after parade shooter Robert Crimo III was sentenced to life in prison.

Village leaders said Highland Park has been forever changed by the mass shooting, but it has also brought the community closer together.

“This will never heard the pain people have experienced, but it lets them move forward with their journey,” Highland Park Mayor Nancy Rotering said.

Highland Park leaders think of July 4, 2022 every single day.

“I heard one of our families say today, there was a before and after,” Highland Park Police Department Chief Lou Jogmen said. “That struck me… it’s always going to be there.”

With Crimo now locked in prison on seven life sentences, the maximum allowable sentence, there’s a sense of moving past, but only in part.

“I don’t think a chapter has closed, because this is something that is on our minds, important to have the sentencing complete and affirmed,” Highland Park City Manager Ghida Neukirch said.

“I don’t think any sentence can be enough for the magnitude of what this person unleashed in the community and for the evil that he brought to the conversation,” Rotering said. “He changed the course of many lives.”

Mayor Rotering has helped lead the charge determined to change gun laws. Illinois passed a statewide assault weapons ban since Highland Park’s mass shooting.

“There are ways that our federal government can make the changes and get these guns out of public access and literally say this isn’t freedom if people have to worry all the time about 83 rounds being shot in under a minute,” Rotering said.

That work on gun control will continue, but for Thursday, a dark chapter in Highland park history comes, at least in part, to a close.

“Relieved, I guess is a good term,” Jogmen said. “Just because of the gravity of what we’ve seen it do to our friends, families and community, this was the only outcome we could accept.”

Mayor Rotering said Thursday was just the first step in healing, and there’s more work ahead as a nation.

“We know what kind of trauma these people are now enduring, and we’re just one community out of the 624 I believe that had mass shootings in 2022,” Rotering said. “That’s a lot of humanity being impacted and it’s important to recognize this doesn’t have to stay the American nightmare.”

The mayor said they plan to have a Fourth of July Parade this year with an altered route, but many of those holiday plans are still in the works. Her and many others just relieved to take a moment to appreciate how far they’ve all come on this journey.

On Wednesday, family members of the people killed on July 4, 2022 in downtown Highland Park expressed their deep loss in a packed Lake County courtroom on the first day of sentencing.

Former federal prosecutor Chris Hotaling speaks on the sentencing for Robert Crimo III.

Crimo was noticeably absent from court and proceedings continued without him.

Witnesses described in painful detail the terror they experienced that day as gunfire erupted during the parade sharing powerful testimony on how that day has changed their lives.

Other survivors who took the stand describe the parade shooting as a warzone and surreal.

Keeley Roberts’ son Cooper was left paralyzed after being shot.

She addressed her comments to Crimo saying, “You are now irrelevant to our family and friends. You ruined your life. You did not ruin ours.”

The FBI said in a statement, “Though his horrendous actions have life-long impacts, the FBI remains committed to ensuring that the public can enjoy an event, like a4th of July parade, free from violence.”