Boy and girl aged 15 among those charged with murdering Chicago man by hurling him off moving train
Two 15-year-olds have been charged with shoving an Illinois man onto the tracks during an argument, moments before an oncoming train came barreling toward him.
A girl and boy, both 15, were arrested in connection with the murder of 29-year-old Kyle Bickham, who was killed during a fight with strangers on a Chicago Transit Authority Red Line train last month, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Prosecutors said several suspects surrounded Bickham before one yanked the emergency lever, forced open the doors and hurled him onto the tracks, where an oncoming train struck and killed him.
In the aftermath, witnesses said they heard one of the suspects chilling words: ‘He shouldn’t have messed with us.’
Meanwhile, the defense claimed Bickham had started the trouble, accusing him of touching the group’s bags, appearing intoxicated and smelling of alcohol.
The teenage boy was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, aggravated battery of a transit employee and mob action.
His charges come weeks after the 15-year-old girl was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, murder by other forcible felony, mob action and aggravated battery of a transit employee.
‘If you’re that evil, to open a door and throw somebody, a live person out, what’s wrong with you? This guy was so kind,’ Bickham’s grandmother, Bertha Ford, told WLS News.
Both teenagers, who have not been named because they are minors, are the fourth and fifth people arrested in the deadly case.
Christian McBounds, 18, of Morgan Park, was charged September 23 with first-degree murder, two additional counts of murder, aggravated battery of a transit employee and mob action, police said.
Days earlier, 19-year-old Katlar Parchman of West Garfield Park was arrested on the same charges after authorities identified her as one of the passengers who allegedly hurled Bickham onto the tracks.
Detectives found a series of suspicious searches on her phone after she consented to a search, including ‘good places to lay low’ and ‘who are the police looking for’ shortly after the attack, according to Fox 32 Chicago.
‘It’s the most hurtful thing that has ever happened,’ Christopher Bickham Sr, the victim’s father, told the WLS.
‘They took happiness. They took sunshine. They just took the world from me. They hurt us. They they hurt me. They hurt my wife. They hurt my kids. They hurt our family.’
Bickham’s senseless death unfolded on the afternoon of September 7, when he was heading home to Lansing after a shift at an Amazon warehouse in Cicero, according to CBS.
He boarded the Red Line at the 95th Street station, the same stop where Parchman, McBound and the two unidentified teenagers got on.
Surveillance cameras inside the train car and several witnesses captured the tense moments that unfolded after Bickham, sitting across from Parchman, began talking to her, Fox 32 Chicago reported.
Minutes later, Bickham and the teenage girl began arguing, with footage allegedly showing the pair moving through the train car as they shouted at each other.
Prosecutors said he spat at the teenager and Parchman before the confrontation turned violent, with one of the men allegedly grabbing his arm as Parchman punched, slapped and grabbed him.
The group then allegedly closed in around Bickham, raining punches and blows on him as they moved toward the rear of the train car.
As one man allegedly choked Bickham, footage showed another pulling the emergency lever and opening the train’s sliding doors while the train was still moving, according to Fox.
The teenage girl, with help from one of the men, then grabbed Bickham by the head and shoulder and forced him out of the train near the 69th Street station, where he was struck and killed by an oncoming southbound train.
‘I would like to know what is going on with the CTA. How it was so easy to have that door open in the middle of a ride and my son be thrown off the train,’ Natalia Bickham, Bickham’s mother, told CBS News.
Investigators first tracked down the 15-year-old girl on September 11, and she appeared in juvenile court days later, according to CBS News.
The girl, who had been listed as a missing person from the south suburbs, was ordered to remain behind bars after the court found probable cause on all counts.
Police traced Parchman through her Ventra card, which was registered to her name and phone number and showed she had entered the 95th Street station around the time of the crime, Fox reported.
A selfie she allegedly posted to her Instagram story that same day showed her wearing the same clothes seen in the surveillance footage.
She was arrested on September 16 in the 200 block of North Keeler Avenue before identifying herself, the teenager and the two men in stills taken from surveillance footage.
Parchman appeared visibly stunned during her first court appearance last month as she sat in the defendant’s chair.
Her attorneys argued that she is a nursing assistant with no criminal record who attends church and performs community service, while insisting she did not cause Bickham’s death and demanding a trial.
The investigation remains ongoing, according to police.

