Rosemont man admits killing 14-year-old Des Plaines boy
The stress Patrick Boswell's family endured awaiting his killer's trial ended Monday with a guilty plea from a gang member who received a 28-year prison sentence after he admitted shooting the Des Plaines 14-year-old nearly two years ago.
"I'm quite relieved," said Patrick's mother Patricia Frontain. "We knew (the defendant) was guilty. He admitted it (to police)."
But Cesar Garay's guilty plea can't assuage the grief Frontain and her family feel at the loss of the Iroquois Community School student who played football and jokingly described himself as "king of the eighth grade."
"It's a nightmare you can't wake up from," Frontain said.
Garay's decision to pick up a gun that day ruined a lot of lives, she said, including those of his mother, girlfriend and young son, who declined to speak to reporters following the hearing before Cook County Judge James Karahalios.
Garay, 22, pleaded guilty to an amended, first-degree murder charge. He entered the plea minutes before jury selection was scheduled to begin.
Garay admitted shooting Patrick Boswell in the back of the head about 8:55 p.m. Jan. 2, 2015, in the 10400 block of Betty Court in Rosemont. The shooting followed an argument between Garay and several members of a rival gang who were acquaintances of Patrick. Garay was armed, but neither Patrick nor his acquaintances had weapons, prosecutors said. They say Garay fired at Patrick and the others as they ran away after the two groups shouted gang slogans at each other.
Police arrested Garay two days later. Eyewitnesses implicated him in the shooting and he made a statement to police admitting his guilt, according to prosecutors.
Frontain says Patrick met his companions about a month earlier at a fall festival in Des Plaines. She says he was not in a gang but was "in the wrong place at the wrong time.".
Patrick "was hanging out with the wrong crowd," said Cook County assistant state's attorney Brian Sexton. "They were trying to recruit him" by pretending to be his friend.
Frontain and her husband channeled their grief into Patrick Lives On, a foundation dedicated to ending gun violence and steering young people away from gangs and toward more productive pursuits. Cast members from the NBC series "Chicago Fire," "Chicago Med" and "Chicago P.D.," where Frontain is a script supervisor, helped raise $50,000 for the foundation so far. The money will help provide financial assistance to at-risk students from Maine West High School and Iroquois School to pursue sports or arts activities that will keep them busy and out of gangs, Frontain said.
Gun violence and gangs is a scourge from which no one is immune, she said.
"If it can happen to my son who was popular, smart, an athlete, it can happen to anyone," Frontain said.