BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. — A jury on Wednesday found a man guilty of murdering a Cook County judge, following a seven-day trial during which prosecutors said the assailants watched the judge and his girlfriend for days before shooting and killing him in a robbery attempt.

Raymond Myles, 66, a longtime jurist at the county’s main courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue, died from his wounds after the shooting on April 10, 2017, outside his home on the Far South Side.

The slaying, believed to be the first of a judge in more than three decades, shocked his colleagues in the local court system and resulted in a sweeping police investigation.

Earl Wilson, 54, was convicted of murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and armed robbery in the shooting in the 9400 block of South Forest Avenue. Wilson’s co-defendant, Joshua Smith, pleaded guilty in 2024 to armed robbery and was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The trial unfolded at a branch courthouse in south suburban Bridgeview before DuPage County Judge Jeffrey McKay, who was appointed due to the potential for conflicts of interest if Myles’ fellow judges in Cook County were to hear the case.

Family members of Myles gathered in the gallery each day. His son, Raymond Myles Jr., testified during the trial’s first day, describing how he called home for a routine check-in and then learned his father had been killed.

“(I) broke down and cried,” the younger Myles said.

Wilson’s attorneys denied that he was involved in the shooting, arguing that the motive for the attack centered around Smith’s family. Smith’s father was previously married to Myles’ girlfriend, and was not happy about the divorce or her new boyfriend, they said.

“Nothing about this case is what it seems,” said Assistant Public Defender Takenya Nixon.

Myles and his girlfriend rose before sunrise each morning to go to the gym before work, and were heading out that morning when they were confronted by a gunman who took Myles’ girlfriend’s gym bag.

Prosecutors said the shooters believed the girlfriend, Venita Parrish, carried money in the bag, but it had no cash in it that morning.

It was still dark when Parrish and Myles left the home that morning, Parrish testified during the trial. That’s when she saw — in her peripheral vision — someone lurking on the side of the brick house.

“Please, hurry,” Parrish said on the recording of her 911 call. “Oh, my Lord, please hurry.”

She ran, then fell and started screaming, she said.

“He said, ‘B—-, shut up,’” she testified.

Myles rushed outside and exchanged words with the attacker before he was shot and killed. According to prosecutors, he pleaded with the shooters, saying: “You don’t have to do this.”

After his killing, court employees remembered Myles as a hardworking and friendly judge. He was a Cubs fan and wore a team jacket to work during the team’s 2016 World Series run.

“Everyone here is devastated,” then-presiding judge of the Criminal Division LeRoy K. Martin Jr. said at the time. “People know when a judge is fair.”

Myles earned his law degree from the University of Illinois and worked as a prosecutor and a private practice defense attorney before taking the bench in 1999.

For years, Myles presided over what was then known as bond court, the notoriously chaotic place for first appearances for new arrestees.

Among high-profile cases he oversaw in that role, Myles ordered William Balfour to be held without bail in the 2008 killings of three relatives of singer Jennifer Hudson and refused to grant a controversial gag order in the infamous murder of seven people at a Brown’s Chicken in Palatine.

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