Chicago Man, 28, Caught 10 Months After Vincennes Ave Crash Killed Two Teens

A 28-year-old Chicago man is facing reckless homicide charges after being tracked down nearly ten months after a fiery crash on the city's South Side left two young passengers dead. Gregory Carter was arrested Thursday in the 2500 block of West 48th Street, ending a manhunt that stretched back to October 17, 2025, when police say he was speeding at least 35 mph over the limit on South Vincennes Avenue before slamming into another vehicle.

According to FOX 32 Chicago, which cited the Chicago Police Department, Carter was driving in the 7500 block of South Vincennes Avenue in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood when he struck another car, killing his two passengers — an 18-year-old woman and a 20-year-old man. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office later identified the victims as 20-year-old Matthew Cuadra and 18-year-old April M. Valencia, both of Lansing, Illinois, who were pronounced dead after being taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center.

Police say the crash was part of a chaotic, multi-vehicle collision. Initial CPD reports indicated a 37-year-old woman driving a westbound gray Buick sedan failed to yield while turning left, striking the eastbound black Dodge carrying Cuadra, Valencia, and three others. An unoccupied parked Mercedes sedan was also struck in the impact, and police initially cited the Buick's driver at the scene for failure to yield.

Chaos on Vincennes Avenue

Three other people riding in the black Dodge — a 15-year-old girl, a 25-year-old woman, and the vehicle's 26-year-old male driver — were hospitalized with injuries that were not considered life-threatening. Emergency dispatch logs reviewed by SubX.News show 911 calls reporting an overturned vehicle with trapped victims began at 9:38 p.m. near 75th Street and Vincennes Avenue, triggering an EMS Plan 1 response that sent five ambulances to the scene. Responding officers shut down surrounding streets for over an hour while crash reconstruction teams worked the scene, per the outlet's report.

Carter evaded arrest for months after the crash before the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force apprehended him alongside CPD's Fugitive Apprehension Unit on Thursday. The task force, established in April 2003 under the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, operates out of Chicago and partners with more than 90 federal, state, and local agencies across Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, according to the U.S. Marshals Service, which prioritizes violent offenders and high-profile fugitives.

Charges and What Carter Faces

CPD said Carter was charged with two counts of reckless homicide, aggravated reckless driving causing bodily harm, speeding at least 35 mph over the limit, and various other traffic citations. He was expected to appear in court for a detention hearing Saturday, the station's report noted.

Under Illinois law, reckless homicide is a Class 3 felony carrying two to five years in state prison per count upon conviction, according to the Illinois General Assembly's statutory code, which requires prosecutors to prove a conscious disregard of a substantial risk to human safety. The aggravated reckless driving charge, meanwhile, is classified as a Class 4 felony under state statute, carrying a standard penalty of one to three years in prison or probation for cases involving great bodily harm.

A Citywide Pattern on Dangerous Roads

The crash adds to a grim pattern documented across Chicago's arterial corridors. Excessive speed is involved in 72% of the city's traffic fatalities, while reckless driving broadly accounts for 85% of traffic deaths citywide, according to data published by the Chicago Department of Transportation. The city recorded 130 traffic deaths and 94,122 total collisions in 2024, and fatal crashes surged 16.7% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, per an analysis from Disparti Law Group and Briskman Briskman & Greenberg.

Vincennes Avenue itself sits within a broader infrastructure challenge on the South Side. State-controlled arterial roadways make up 44% of Chicago's High Injury Network corridor miles, requiring joint oversight between CDOT and the Illinois Department of Transportation, according to Streetsblog Chicago's review of the city's annual crash report. High-speed arterial streets like Vincennes see a disproportionate share of the city's most severe collisions.

Carter's arrest follows other recent Hoodline reporting on fatal traffic cases moving through Cook County courts, including a sentencing in an I-290 crash that killed two teenage passengers. The stretch of South Vincennes Avenue where the October crash occurred has also drawn separate attention this month after a shooting was reported on the same block.