60-Year Sentence For Man In 2020 Home Invasions In Wheaton, Lombard

WHEATON, IL — A Cook County man has been sentenced to 60 years in prison in connection a pair of 2020 home invasions that took place in Wheaton and Lombard.

Malik Pitts, 25, pleaded guilty to attempted murder, home invasion and attempted child pornography.

Officers were called to a home in the 1700 block of East Evergreen Street in Wheaton after residents reported that they had heard sounds outside their home. They went outside, leaving the door unlocked, and reentered the home to find Pitts and co-defendant Isaiah Johnson, 24, of Blue Island, according to prosecutors.

Police say Johnson pointed a handgun at the residents and told them to go to the back of the home.

Pitts entered a room in which a grandmother and her two granddaughters were sleeping. Prosecutors say he tried to "pull down the blanket and shorts and underwear of one of the girls" and then hit the grandmother when she woke up and confronted him.

The girls' father came in and fought Pitts before Pitts and Johnson fled in a car that had been reported stolen, police say.

Just before 5:30 a.m. that same day, a home invasion and shooting were reported in the 400 block of South Highland Avenue in Lombard. Prosecutors say a man woke up to find Johnson and Pitts in the living room of his house. Johnson is accused of aiming a gun at the man and asking, "Where's the money?"

Pitts went upstairs and found a mother and daughter sleeping, then told them both to get on the floor.

Prosecutors say Pitts told the girl to go downstairs and take off her clothes, but she refused and ran from Pitts, which prompted her father to get into a physical struggle with Pitts that progressed into the home's backyard.

Police say Johnson fired "multiple gunshots" amid the fight, with one shot hitting the father, then exiting his body and hitting Pitts.

Johnson and Pitts fled in the same car that was involved in the Wheaton home invasion, per a news release.

Keytori Jackson had been identified as the car's driver and has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

“In the early morning hours, Mr. Pitts and Mr. Johnson violated the sanctity of their victims’ home in the worst imaginable way possible,” DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement. “We all deserve to feel safe and secure in our homes, and the shockingly violent behavior shown by these two men demonstrates their complete disregard for our laws and for human life. Their actions have shattered that sense of safety. Judge O’Connell’s sixty-year sentence sends a crystal clear message to would-be criminals that in DuPage County, we have zero tolerance for the type of violent crime exhibited in this case."

Related: 3 Charged With 'Violent' Home Invasions In Wheaton, Lombard

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the home invasions took place in Wheaton and Lisle; the incidents were in Wheaton and Lombard. Patch apologizes for the error.