Overview
- The theft, captured on surveillance cameras Saturday near Chicago and Franklin avenues, ended with the owner dragged for blocks and later pronounced dead.
- Footage shows a man jumping into the van as the owner tended to dogs, then driving off as the owner clung to the door before a turn onto East 18th Street threw him under the vehicle.
- Police found the van abandoned a few blocks away with the keys in the ignition and the dogs still inside, and witnesses reported a brief argument before the theft.
- Gerald Nicolas Cepeda was arrested Tuesday, and investigators say he told them he was "just playing a joke" and planned to return the van.
- Prosecutors filed one count of second-degree murder and cited prior vehicle-theft convictions in 2024 and 2025, with court records listing no known address for Cepeda.