Woman charged with murder a year after shooting boyfriend in head

As quadriplegic Lavatus McCullough’s health took a turn for the worse last month, prosecutors moved to up the charges against the woman who had shot him in the head in Logan Square nearly a year earlier.

Last week, after a year on a ventilator, McCullough slipped into a coma and died, prompting Cook County prosecutors to again upgrade the charges against his 29-year-old girlfriend, Samantha Santiago, to first-degree murder from attempted murder.

Santiago, who had been held in jail in lieu of $950,000 bail on the attempted murder charge, was ordered held without bail at a hearing Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. She had previously been charged with aggravated battery in connection with the shooting.

Despite his injuries, McCullough had on multiple occasions identified his former girlfriend, Santiago, as the person who shot him.

McCullough and Santiago were dating, and Santiago’s 9-year-old son called McCullough his step-father, Assistant State’s Attorney Jamie Santini said.

On July 31, 2016, Santiago and her son were with McCullough at an apartment in the 2300 block of North Kedzie, when Santiago told the boy to go downstairs.

A minute later, the boy heard a “loud boom” from upstairs, and Santiago came down and said it was time to go, Santini said. Santiago called 911 on her cell phone, telling dispatchers “He’s trying to kill me and my son,” before hanging up.

Police arrived to find McCullough facedown in the upstairs bedroom, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the head, Santini said. The entry wound was directly under McCullough’s chin and the bullet exited at the base of his skull.

Santiago admitted she was at the apartment the night 36-year-old McCullough was shot, and that she called an ambulance before fleeing with her son, Santini said.

Paralyzed from the neck down, McCullough would move over the course of a year from the Intensive Care Unit at Stroger Hospital to a rehab hospital, to a nursing home in Oak Lawn.

In August, McCullough’s health declined rapidly, and he was transported to Advocate Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, where he died on Aug. 7.

The Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, finding that McCullough died of complications from the gunshot wound, Santini said.