{"id":135447,"date":"2026-01-16T01:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/135447\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T01:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T01:34:21","slug":"aiden-leos-case-mother-of-6-year-old-killed-in-2021-oc-road-rage-shooting-speaks-out-after-boys-father-files-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/135447\/","title":{"rendered":"Aiden Leos case: Mother of 6-year-old killed in 2021 OC road rage shooting speaks out after boy’s father files lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. (KABC) — A mother whose 6-year-old son died in a 2021 road rage shooting<\/a> on the 55 Freeway in Orange County is speaking out after she was sued by the boy’s father.<\/p>\n

The civil lawsuit by Joey Leos against Joanna Cloonan was filed in Orange County Superior Court.<\/p>\n

It also names the shooter, Marcus Anthony Eriz, who is serving a prison sentence<\/a> of 40 years to life for the shooting of Aiden Leos.<\/p>\n

“It is the most horrible pain I could ever imagine upon a mother,” Cloonan told Eyewitness News.<\/p>\n

The incident happened in May 2021. Aiden was sitting in a booster seat and was struck by gunfire when Eriz fired at his mother’s car.<\/p>\n

The boy’s father alleges in the 13-page complaint that Cloonan’s aggressive driving provoked the deadly shooting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

“I’m disgusted,” said Cloonan. “I’m offended. None of that is truth.”<\/p>\n

Neither Joey Leos nor his attorney responded to ABC7’s requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Eriz’s girlfriend, Wynne Lee, who was a passenger in his car at time, and Cloonan’s mother are also named in the suit. Cloonan’s mother set up the GoFundMe after the boy’s death.<\/p>\n

“He’s revictimized me … fully, and I’ve had to relive all that pain over again,” said Cloonan. “I just want to be left alone.”<\/p>\n

Cloonan’s attorney Mike Caspino called it “the most abusive case” he’s ever seen of “trying to kick someone while they’re down.”<\/p>\n

Caspino said the lawsuit is unprecedented.<\/p>\n

“This is a reprehensible case, and I expect it to be thrown out at the very earliest opportunity,” he said.<\/p>\n

Cloonan said every day is still a struggle, even years later. She said she just wants to get back to healing.<\/p>\n

“It’s been hard to leave the house with all the anxiety and pain,” she said. “Hard to get up, hard to brush your teeth, but I still fight because I say this story doesn’t end here, and I’m not going to let evil win, because this is pure evil.”<\/p>\n

As it stands, the civil case is set for trial at the end of March.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORANGE COUNTY, Calif. (KABC) — A mother whose 6-year-old son died in a 2021 road rage shooting on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[69118,163,165,164],"class_list":["post-135447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-69118","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}