Prosecutors allege Lyndell Deyoung organized the 2024 shooting and pressured a teenager to carry it out.
CHICAGO — A Chicago man has been indicted on murder charges in the 2024 killing of U.S. Postal Service letter carrier Octavia Redmond, a case prosecutors say involved a planned attack carried out by a teenager while Redmond was delivering mail.
Lyndell Deyoung, 35, faces one felony count of first-degree murder and one felony count of murder by acts creating a strong probability of death or great bodily harm. Prosecutors allege Deyoung organized the attack on the 48-year-old carrier and pressured a 15-year-old boy to carry out the shooting. Deyoung remains jailed while the case moves through Cook County court. The allegations have not been proven at trial.
Deyoung was arrested Aug. 24 after an investigation involving Chicago police and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. Authorities had identified him as a suspect in Redmond’s July 19, 2024, killing in the 12100 block of South Harvard Avenue in the West Pullman neighborhood. Redmond was working her postal route when she was attacked.
Prosecutors previously told a judge that Deyoung watched Redmond’s route before the killing and helped arrange the attack. They allege he told the teenager that he would kill the boy if the teen refused to shoot Redmond. The teenager, whose name has not been publicly released because he was prosecuted as a juvenile, later pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced in July to five years in juvenile detention.
Investigators have also focused on a stolen vehicle allegedly used in the killing. Prosecutors have said cellphone records, messages, location information and data associated with the vehicle helped authorities reconstruct the movements and communications of people suspected of taking part in the plan. The vehicle was recovered after the shooting.
Another defendant, Yanheim Edwards, was accused of driving the getaway vehicle and later burning it. Prosecutors have said Edwards provided information about Deyoung’s alleged role in arranging the killing. The broader investigation eventually led authorities to Deyoung more than two years after Redmond’s death.
Authorities have not publicly established why Redmond was targeted. Although prosecutors have described the shooting as a planned killing, the motive behind the alleged plot remains unclear in publicly available accounts. That unanswered question continues to distinguish the case from other violence involving postal employees, including robberies in which carriers have been targeted for mail or postal keys.
Deyoung’s family disputed the case against him during his court appearance, maintaining his innocence and questioning the evidence used to implicate him. Prosecutors, however, have pointed to witness information as well as electronic and vehicle-related evidence in describing the alleged planning of the attack. Deyoung is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.
Redmond’s killing drew sustained attention from postal workers in Chicago, who have repeatedly called for greater protection for carriers working neighborhood routes. Postal inspectors have said the arrest resulted from cooperation among federal and local investigators and have pledged to continue investigating violence against postal employees.
Deyoung is being held in the Cook County Jail and is scheduled to return to court Sept. 28. The prosecution remains pending, and no trial date has been publicly announced in the reporting reviewed for this story.
Author note: Last updated September 20, 2026.