Teen charged with murder in fatal Chicago carjaking

CHICAGO (AP) -

A teenager already suspected in a string of carjackings in Chicago has been charged with first-degree murder after he allegedly shot to death the driver of an SUV during an attempted carjacking last month, prosecutors said Thursday.

At a court hearing, a judge ordered 16-year-old Denroy Garcia held without bond in the slaying of 33-year-old Shuai Guan, who was gunned down in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood on the city's South Side. Garcia's name was released because he is being charged as an adult. He's also charged with attempted carjacking.

According to the Chicago Tribune, prosecutors said that on Dec. 21, Garcia ordered Guan at gunpoint out of his vehicle before climbing behind the wheel. Then, they said, when for an unknown reason he could not put the car in drive, he allegedly shot Guan.

During the hearing, prosecutors said Garcia was already in juvenile detention, where he was being held on carjacking and possession of stolen vehicle charges for three separate carjacking incidents.

Guan was killed at the end of a year in which the number of carjackings more than doubled from the year before. About three weeks earlier, a retired Chicago firefighter was fatally shot during an attempted carjacking of his vehicle.