Maria Pike waited for years to see her son’s killer brought to justice, only to learn his murder conviction was reversed on appeal last year.
She watched with frustration as the man who shot her son Ricky Pike pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was ordered released on parole.
“All I want for my son is justice, not revenge,” she said during a hearing Monday in a Cook County courtroom. “I want accountability. That is my job as a mother. That is not what I am getting today.”
Arcadio Davila walked out of Stateville prison two days later. He maintains his innocence despite pleading to second-degree murder.
“I pleaded guilty because my family needed me, and that’s the only reason,” Davila, 35, said when reached by phone.
Pike said what happened demonstrates how families of violent crime victims often have to wait for cases to go through Cook County’s slow court system and the difficulties prosecutors face when they choose to pursue a case a second time.
“It feels like it’s never really over,” Pike said in an interview.
A Cook County state’s attorney’s spokeswoman said the decision to make a deal with Davila “was made with a deep sense of responsibility.” She said it provides “a measure of justice to those affected, acknowledging the complexities and the passage of time in this case.”
Ricky Pike, 24, was killed early Aug. 3, 2012, shot because a passenger in his car was wearing a green-and-gold Oakland Athletics baseball cap, prosecutors said during Davila’s 2018 trial.
After Ricky Pike parked in the 2100 block of North St. Louis Avenue, near his Logan Square apartment, a sedan pulled alongside his car.
“Hey, what’s up,” the shooter said before shooting him multiple times and hitting a friend who was with him in the hand, according to testimony.
Maria Pike said it’s the kind of shooting that too often goes unsolved in Chicago.
But this time detectives had an eyewitness. Ricky Pike’s passenger grew up in the neighborhood and said he “immediately” recognized Davila because he’s known him since grade school.
The passenger had moved away and didn’t see Davila again until December 2011, when they ran into each other at a party in Logan Square, he testified. Ricky Pike’s friend said the street was brightly lit at the time of the shooting and that he was “100% sure” it was Davila who pulled the trigger, court records show.
Police testified that Davila had been shot at two days earlier while standing with members of the Imperial Gangsters, whose rivals, a gang called Orchestra Albany, wore green and gold as their colors.
Davila denied any involvement and said he had been sleeping at home, which his stepfather backed up.
But the jury found Davila guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder, and he was sentenced to 80 years in prison — until the conviction was reversed last year.
The appeals court judges rejected most of Davila’ claims, saying the sole eyewitness had been consistent and credible. But comments detectives made while questioning Davila that were shown to jurors might have been prejudicial, the court ruled.
Prosecutors were faced with the prospect of retrying the case a decade after the shooting and with the witness now hesitant to go through another trial, several people with knowledge of the case said.
Maria Pike said she understands the witness’ reluctance to testify a second time, noting that he had moved several times and even changed his name after the first trial and wanted to put the case behind him.
Still, he agreed to participate and gave a statement to prosecutors last month.
Then, on Sept. 26, the day the second trial was set to start, prosecutors revealed that the witness said for the first time that he had also seen Davila open fire at the party they attended the year before Ricky Pike was shot. The retrial was delayed.
Messages left for the witness weren’t returned.
When prosecutors told Maria Pike they were going to offer Davila a plea deal, she said she was conflicted about whether to risk a second trial if it meant he could be released without acknowledging that he killed her son.
In spite of the deal, she said she still hopes to get that acknowledgment. Davila spent about 10 years in prison.
“I never wanted you to serve 80-plus years, but I did want for you to accept responsibility for the worst mistake you made in your life, an error so big it destroyed my family and yours,” the mother, who has gotten involved in anti-violence work, told Davila.
“I don’t believe that has happened yet. And I am praying for you to do the right thing because your debt to society is not fully paid,” she said.
