By Heart of Illinois ABC

BLOOMINGTON – Several people who heard gunfire during a 2018 triple murder took the stand in McLean County on Tuesday. Sydney Mays is charged with first degree murder and attempted murder in the shooting that killed three and seriously injured a child.

Shannon Whiting lived next door to the apartment where Nathaniel Pena and Corey Jackson were killed. She thought she had heard fireworks or a hammer, that was until she heard screaming.

“I was a little bit suspicious of it, so I just kind of sat up on the couch and looked around, looked towards the door,” said Whiting.

With her living so close, she heard every round.

“And so I froze for just a second and just froze and then I heard what I thought were footsteps, go across, in front of my door…I started to hear a woman screaming and crying,” she added.

That women who was crying was Maria Sanchez. Her husband, Juan Carlos Perez-Macedo, who left his apartment to see what was happening, was shot and killed in one of the building’s stairwells.

Graphic crime scene photos captured Perez-Macedo lying dead on a landing between the second and third floors. His wife said he was trying to see if Pena’s four-year-old son was okay.

The judge was also shown video of police clearing the building, looking for the shooter. The state said the shooter, who they allege was Sydney Mays, had already escaped.

The defense pointed out that video showing the alleged getaway car does not show who is in the car, and even if it did, Mays leaving the scene does not mean he is the shooter.

Testimony from the state’s witnesses resumes Wednesday.

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