The gunman in an Easter Sunday shooting in Streator was convicted of all charges.

Tyler Skerett, 31, of Streator, was convicted Friday of first-degree murder for the April 20 shooting death of Camryn Merritte. He also was convicted of attempted murder for striking and wounding Delargo Gullens and James Forbes during the same drive-by shooting.

A jury deliberated about 2½ hours Friday in La Salle County Circuit Court and found Skerett, who declined Friday to testify, guilty on all counts. He showed no reaction as the verdicts were read aloud.

Skerett will be sentenced Dec. 5, and his estimated sentencing range starts at 45 years. A full review of his sentencing range is pending by the La Salle County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Skerett will have an opportunity to address La Salle County Circuit Judge Michelle A. Vescogni at sentencing.

La Salle County State’s Attorney Joe Navarro expressed his thanks to the “attentive” jury, his assistants and the many law enforcement officers who helped in the extensive investigation.

“It is definitely the correct verdict in this case,” Navarro said. “The defendant went to great lengths to hide his involvement in this matter by disposing of the gun, fleeing to Peoria and was readying to run to Colorado.

“It all points to one thing: He had guilty intents. I’m thankful he won’t be able to harm people in the future.”

During closing arguments Friday, Public Defender Ryan Hamer asked the jury to acquit Skerett, citing the lack of direct evidence. There were no eyewitnesses – Gullens and Forbes wouldn’t name their assailant – and police never retrieved a murder weapon nor any fingerprints or DNA tying Skerett to the scene or the Chevrolet Cruze from which the shots were fired.

“The state has done a fine job of telling you a story,” Hamer said, “but at the end of the day, it’s just a theory.”

Hamer called Merritte’s killing “a horrible tragedy” but said prosecutors had an inflated view of the evidence supposedly implicating Skerett in the shooting.

Prosecutors said there was plenty of circumstantial evidence linking Skerett to the Cruze and, by extension, to the scene.

The Cruze was repeatedly captured on surveillance systems and Flock cameras from Ottawa to Streator to Peoria, where police recovered the vehicle and found it wiped down. In most depictions, the driver couldn’t be seen.

Investigators caught a break when a camera at a Clark gas station recorded the Cruze and showed a masked man emerge from the driver’s seat. Footage recorded the day of the shooting from inside an Ottawa residence showed Skerett wearing those same clothes and with a mask lowered below his chin.

Prosecutor Laura Hall told the jury to consider why the murder weapon and clothes were never recovered.

“Of course, we don’t have the gun,” Hall said. “Of course, we don’t have the clothes. Because he was in control and he got rid of them.”

Any remaining doubts about Skerett’s complicity may have been dashed by his July apprehension and some texts retrieved later from his cellphone.

Arresting officers caught Skerett fleeing. In his pocket was a Greyhound bus ticket under an assumed name. Prosecutor Jason Goode asked a jury if these were the actions of an innocent man.

“[Skerett] ran until he couldn’t run anymore,” Goode said. “He had to be tackled in Chicago. He was in possession of a bus ticket in a fake name.”

As for the phone, it yielded text messages showing Skerett gloating over Merritte’s killing.

“One of y’all is dead,” Skerett wrote to a survivor. “I’m happy.”

Goode urged jurors to consider the text messages and whether they could have come from someone who was blameless in the Easter Sunday drive-by.

“Does that sound genuine? Does that sound like someone whose heart is broken?” he said.