A 28-year-old Chicago man faces reckless homicide charges after being apprehended almost ten months after a violent crash on the city’s South Side killed two teenage passengers. Gregory Carter was apprehended Thursday in the 2500 block of West 48th Street, bringing an end to a manhunt that began on October 17, 2025, when police claim he was driving at least 35 mph over the speed limit on South Vincennes Avenue before colliding with another vehicle.
According to FOX 32 Chicago and the Chicago Police Department, Carter was driving in the 7500 block of South Vincennes Avenue in the Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood when he collided with another automobile, killing his two passengers, an 18-year-old lady and a 20-year-old male. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office eventually identified the victims as Matthew Cuadra, 20, and April M., 18. Valencia, both from Lansing, Illinois, were pronounced dead after being transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center.
According to police, the crash was the result of a chaotic multi-vehicle collision. According to the initial CPD reports, a 37-year-old lady driving a westbound gray Buick sedan failed to yield when turning left, colliding with an eastbound black Dodge carrying Cuadra, Valencia, and three others. An unoccupied parked Mercedes vehicle was also struck in the collision, and police first penalized the Buick driver for failure to yield.
Three other passengers in the black Dodge—a 15-year-old girl, a 25-year-old woman, and the vehicle’s 26-year-old male driver—were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. SubX reviewed emergency dispatch logs.911 reports reporting an overturned vehicle with trapped victims began at 9:38 p.m. at 75th Street and Vincennes Avenue, prompting an EMS Plan 1 response with five ambulances dispatched to the scene. According to the site, responding officers closed adjacent streets for more than an hour while crash reconstruction experts worked the scene.
Carter avoided capture for months following the incident before being caught by the US Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force and the Chicago Police Department’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit on Thursday. The task force, established in April 2003 under the Presidential Threat Protection Act of 2000, is based in Chicago and collaborates with over 90 federal, state, and local agencies in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin, according to the US Marshals Service, which prioritizes violent offenders and high-profile fugitives.
Carter was charged with two counts of reckless murder, aggravated reckless driving inflicting bodily harm, exceeding the speed limit by at least 35 mph, and a variety of other traffic violations, according to CPD. According to the station’s report, he was scheduled to appear in court on Saturday for a detention hearing.
According to the Illinois General Assembly’s statutory code, reckless homicide is a Class 3 felony punishable by two to five years in state prison per count upon conviction. Prosecutors must prove a conscious disregard of a considerable risk to human safety. Meanwhile, the allegation of aggravated reckless driving is designated as a Class 4 felony under state law, with a standard sentence of one to three years in jail or probation for situations involving grave bodily harm.
The tragedy adds to a troubling pattern that has been recorded along Chicago’s arterial routes. According to data given by the Chicago Department of Transportation, excessive speed is responsible for 72% of traffic fatalities in the city, while reckless driving accounts for 85% of traffic deaths overall. In 2024, the city recorded 130 traffic deaths and 94,122 total collisions, while fatal wrecks increased 16.7% in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Disparti Law Group and Briskman Briskman & Greenberg.
Vincennes Avenue itself is part of a larger infrastructural concern on the South Side. According to Streetsblog Chicago’s analysis of the city’s annual crash report, state-controlled arterial roads account for 44% of Chicago’s High Injury Network corridor miles, necessitating collaborative oversight by CDOT and the Illinois Department of Transportation. High-speed arterial roads, such as Vincennes, experience a disproportionate number of the city’s most serious collisions.
Carter’s arrest follows Hoodline’s recent coverage of tragic traffic cases in Cook County courts, including a sentencing in an I-290 incident that killed two adolescent passengers. The stretch of South Vincennes Avenue where the October crash occurred has received more attention this month after a shooting was reported on the same street.
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