Shortly before she stabbed a 7-year-old girl in an unprovoked, daytime attack, Shavon Gayden first threatened to kill someone in a nearby store, Cook County prosecutors alleged Friday.
Gayden is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Eddimar Hernandez-Chacon on Oct. 3 as the girl walked down a busy South Side thoroughfare hand-in-hand with her older sister. Cook County Judge John Hock ordered Gayden jailed while awaiting trial, referencing the randomness of the attack as well as a history of violence apparently driven by mental health issues.
“She is as dangerous as a person can be,” Hock said.
Family members of Eddimar watched the proceedings, wearing T-shirts and sweatshirts that memorialized the girl. The detention hearing proceeded on Friday after it was delayed twice because of Gayden’s hospitalization.
In the week after the stabbing, stunned and grieving community members have left items to remember Eddimar at the site of the attack in the 8600 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue. At the scene this week, a package of Skittles, a toy tiara, a cross and a framed photo of Eddimar sat close by the words “Eddimar, te amo” — “Eddimar, I love you” spelled out in more candy.
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Gayden’s public defender did not seek release for the 48-year-old woman, but said Gayden has suffered from mental health issues for years and asked for a psychiatric evaluation, which Hock granted.
“This obviously was a tragedy that should not have happened,” Assistant Public Defender Brett Balmer said, adding that Gayden and her family members had struggled to get appropriate psychiatric care for her. “This was absolutely predictable.”
During the hearing, Gayden yelled that she wanted to be taken out of the courtroom, along with several nonsensical outbursts.
“All y’all got AIDS,” she said, as the judge told her it’s preferable for her to be present for the hearing.
For much of the rest of the proceedings, Gayden closed her eyes, with her head tilted to the side.
“She clearly suffers, as indicated by her attorney and her outbursts, from mental health issues,” Hock said, making his ruling for detention.
Just before noon, Eddimar and her 17-year-old sister were walking down South Cottage Grove Avenue on their way to the store, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Pekara.
Meanwhile, Pekara said, Gayden was inside a nearby store paying her cell phone bill when she became impatient and yelled at the sales associates. She threatened to stab one of them in the neck, he said.
Gayden left the store and was walking toward the girls when she first lunged at the 17-year-old, Pekara said. Gayden then grabbed Eddimar’s shirt, pulled her down and stabbed her four times, he said.
The teenager screamed for help, and Eddimar fell into her sister’s arms, Pekara said.
Multiple passersby called 911 and tried to help, he said. Bystanders stopped Gayden from leaving, and one hit her in the head, causing her to lose consciousness.
Chicago Fire Department paramedics took the girl to Comer Children’s Hospital, where she was pronounced dead a short time later.
In arguing for detention, Pekara called Gayden’s risk to the public an “understatement.”
“You see a brutal and evil attack on a 7-year-old child,” he said.
Gayden has a history of violent attacks, including those involving knives, Pekara said.
Gayden, of the Calumet Heights neighborhood, was arrested twice, in 2016 and 2019, for domestic battery charges, court records show. Both cases were dropped a short time later.
In the 2016 case, Pekara said, she stabbed her boyfriend after an argument. The case was dropped when the boyfriend did not appear in court to proceed with the complaint, he said.
In 2019, Gayden was accused of running toward her 17-year-old son with a knife after she became angry over food in the refrigerator, Pekara said. The matter also was dropped when the son did not show up in court, he said.
In September 2023, she was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and battery to a transit employee for allegedly threatening to stab a CTA bus driver. Records show Gayden pleaded guilty to the charge in October 2024 and was sentenced to two years of probation. Shortly afterward, though, she was charged with a new battery case. She pleaded guilty to that charge in July 2025 and was sentenced to six months of probation, and court records list her as having completed that sentence this January.
Records from the 2023 case, in which Gayden admitted to threatening the bus driver, show that she skipped a court date in February 2025, leading Judge Natosha Toller to issue a warrant for her arrest.
That warrant had apparently not been executed and was still active at the time of the attack.