A suburban Chicago man is facing charges in a 2022 road rage shooting that killed a 3-year-old boy in West Lawn.
Govanni Hernandez, 32, of Berwyn was arrested after DNA evidence connected him to the shooting that killed 3-year-old Mateo Zastro on Sept. 30, 2022. Mateo was sitting in the back seat of his mother's sport-utility vehicle when he was shot, chief of detectives Antoinette Ursitti said Thursday.
"While we know this will not bring Mateo back, we hope this brings a measure of closure," Ursitti said.
The shooting stemmed from a road rage incident between Hernandez and Mateo's mother, Veronica Zastro, that started near Cicero Avenue around 8:40 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2022. She attempted to get away from Hernandez but he continued to follow close behind. Ursitti said there was no relationship between the two.
In an interview with the Sun-Times, Zastro said she was driving home when a red car suddenly cut her off.
She was just blocks from their home when the shooting started in the 4400 block of West Marquette Road.
Zastro drove off from where shots were fired before flagging down officers for help, according to police radio transmissions, which show that a police officer quickly identified the shooting as a case of road rage.
Ursitti said they believed she was the intended target, but Mateo, who was riding in the vehicle with his three siblings, was struck in the head. He died about eight hours later at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
“What made them think to do that, knowing that they can see kids and girls in the front seat?” Zastro told the Sun-Times. “What possessed them to want to come up and down the block looking?”
ShotSpotter captured at least 10 rounds, according to a police report.
Ursitti said officers found the vehicle involved in the shooting on Oct. 27, 2022 and were able to collect DNA evidence. Nearly a year later in August 2023, a match came through the Combined DNA Index System.
Hernandez was taken into custody Tuesday in suburban Berwyn near his home, Ursitti said.
With DNA results combined with witness testimonies and digital and physical evidence, charges were approved Thursday, Ursitti said.
Hernandez was charged with one count each of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder and murder with a strong probability of death or injury.
"We never forgot Mateo or his family," Ursitti said. "I wanted to commend Area One detectives ... and the work they did to apprehend this violent offender who for two years cowardly went on with his life while Mateo’s family lived with the trauma of his loss in this shooting."
