Boy, 16, arrested in fatal shooting of Melanie Yates

ZION, Ill. (AP) — A 16-year-old boy has been arrested after allegedly firing a bullet that struck and killed a young suburban Chicago mother reading to her child, police said Wednesday.

Zechariah C. Myles has been charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the Oct. 17 death of Melanie Yates, 23, of Zion, police said. A Lake County judge set his bond at $3 million.

Myles and two other juveniles were arrested shortly after 4 p.m. Tuesday after a shooting in nearby Waukegan, police said. No injuries were reported in that shooting.

An arrest warrant was issued last week for Myles in the slaying of Yates, a mother of two young daughters and an unintended target who was reportedly reading to her child when a bullet came through a window in her home and struck her in the head.^[1] Myles was firing a rifle at someone else at the time, police have said.

Myles was lodged in the Lake County Juvenile Detention Center in Vernon Hills.

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