A Melrose Park man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for killing a 9-year-old boy during a drive-by shooting outside a family birthday party in Franklin Park in 2023. Javier Murillo pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm in connection with the death of Ulysses Campos, who was fatally struck by gunfire while playing outside with his cousins.
According to ABC7 Chicago, Murillo was initially charged with first-degree murder before agreeing to the plea. Prosecutors said the shooting stemmed from an argument with Campos' father just minutes earlier, and that Murillo had no previous felony convictions. The station reported that Murillo had returned to Illinois from California before the shooting and was living with his parents and brother in Melrose Park at the time, working for Metra.
The confrontation that preceded the gunfire began when Campos' father, a concealed-carry license holder, noticed a gun inside Murillo's SUV and showed his own firearm, according to Cook County prosecutors detailed in a report from CBS News. That prompted Murillo to raise a weapon to his own chest before driving down the alley, turning around, and firing three to four shots toward the children who were lighting fireworks nearby, per the outlet's account of the prosecutors' description. The same report noted that Ulysses Campos was killed on July 8, 2023, while playing outside during his grandmother's 70th birthday party, just two weeks before his own 10th birthday.
Race to Loyola, Then a Manhunt
The shooting happened at 10:15 p.m., and Campos was rushed to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest shortly before 11 p.m., Front Page Detectives reported. Investigators later said license plate readers and surveillance video led them to Murillo, per prosecutors' account of the investigation cited by ABC7.
Local police investigated the shooting in coordination with the West Suburban Major Crimes Task Force and the Cook County State's Attorney's Office, according to a Village of Franklin Park press release from July 2023. That release noted officers located Murillo's vehicle in unincorporated Leyden Township before taking him into custody. The task force, known as WESTAF, is a multi-jurisdictional non-profit established in 2001 that pools specialized homicide investigators and forensic evidence technicians across western Cook County police departments, according to the Forest Park Police Department.
What the Plea Means Under Illinois Law
Murillo's plea to second-degree murder shifts the case into a different legal category than the first-degree murder charge he originally faced. Under Illinois statute, second-degree murder is a Class 1 felony carrying a determinate prison sentence ranging from 4 to 20 years, reduced from first-degree murder when mitigating factors such as an unreasonable belief in self-defense or sudden passion are present. Illinois' Truth-in-Sentencing law further requires that anyone convicted of second-degree murder serve a mandatory minimum of 85 percent of the court-imposed sentence before becoming eligible for release.
Prosecutorial proceedings for the case fell under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Municipal District of the Circuit Court of Cook County at the Maywood Courthouse, which handles felony hearings and criminal trials for western Cook County municipalities. Murillo's sentence of more than 15 years falls within the statutory range for the reduced charge, meaning he will serve the large majority of that term behind bars under the state's sentencing rules.
A Community's Response to Loss
Franklin Park is a village of roughly 18,467 residents in Cook County's Leyden Township, more than 62 percent Hispanic and located about a mile west of Chicago's city limits, according to Wikipedia's summary of Census Bureau data. In the days after the shooting, neighbors organized a fundraiser that raised more than $21,000 to help the Campos family cover funeral expenses and to fund a memorial tree in Ulysses' honor, Forest Park Patch reported at the time.
The case closes with a substantial prison term for Murillo, but it leaves behind the lasting image described by prosecutors: a birthday celebration for a grandmother turned into the scene of a child's death after a brief roadside dispute escalated into gunfire aimed down an alley where children were lighting fireworks.
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