Maria Pike waited for years to see her son’s killer brought to justice, only to learn his murder conviction was reversed on appeal last year.

She watched with frustration Monday as the same defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was ordered released on parole.

“All I want for my son is justice, not revenge,” she said during a hearing in a Cook County courtroom. “I want accountability, that is my job as a mother. That is not what I am getting today.”

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Arcadio Davila walked out of Stateville prison two days later and maintains his innocence, despite pleading to second-degree murder in the case.

“I pleaded guilty because my family needed me and that’s the only reason,” Davila, 35, said when reached by phone.

Pike said the case shows how families of violent crime victims often have to wait for cases to wind through Cook County’s slow-churning court system – and the difficulties prosecutors face when they choose to bring a case a second time.

“It feels like it’s never really over,” Pike said in an interview.

A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office said the decision to cut a deal with Davila “was made with a deep sense of responsibility,” adding that it provides “a measure of justice to those affected, acknowledging the complexities and the passage of time in this case.”

Ricky Pike, 24, was killed early Aug. 3, 2012, because a passenger in his car was wearing a green and gold Oakland Athletics baseball cap, prosecutors said during Davila’s 2018 trial.

After parking in the 2100 block of North St. Louis Avenue, near his Logan Square apartment, a sedan pulled alongside Ricky Pike’s car.

“Hey, what’s up,” the shooter said before opening fire, striking Ricky Pike multiple times and hitting the friend who was riding with him in the hand.

Maria Pike said it’s the kind of shooting that too often goes unsolved in the city.

But detectives had an eyewitness: Ricky Pike’s passenger had grown up in the neighborhood and said he “immediately” recognized Davila, who he had known since grade school.

He had eventually moved away from the neighborhood and didn’t see Davila again until December 2011, when they ran into each other at a party in Logan Square, he testified.

On the stand, Ricky Pike’s friend said the street was brightly lit at the time of the shooting and he was “100% sure” Davila pulled the trigger, court records show.

Police testified that Davila had been shot at two days earlier while standing with members of the Imperial Gangsters, whose rivals, a gang called Orchestra Albany, wore green and gold as their colors.

Davila denied involvement and said he had been sleeping at home, an account backed up by his stepfather.

The jury found Davila guilty of first-degree murder and attempted murder, and he was sentenced to 80 years in prison — until the conviction was reversed last year.

The appellate court justices rejected most of Davila’ claims on appeal and noted that the state’s sole eyewitness had been consistent and credible on the stand. But comments made by detectives during an interrogation of Davila that was shown to jurors may have been prejudicial, the court ruled.

Prosecutors were then faced with bringing the case a second time, now more than a decade after the shooting and with the sole eyewitness hesitant to go through another trial, several people with knowledge of the case said.

Maria Pike said she understood the witnesses’ reluctance to testify a second time, noting he had moved several times and even changed his name after the first trial. He wanted to put the case behind him, she said.

Still, he agreed to participate and gave a statement to prosecutors last month.

Then on Sept. 26, the day the second trial was set to start, prosecutors revealed that the witness claimed for the first time that he had also seen Davila open fire at the party they attended the year before Ricky Pike was shot.

The trial was delayed again.

Messages left with the witness were not returned.

When prosecutors told Maria Pike they were going to offer a plea deal to Davila, she said she was deeply conflicted about whether to risk a second trial if it meant he could be released without acknowledging he took her son’s life.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

In spite of the deal, she said she still hopes to get that.

“I never wanted you to serve 80-plus years, but I did want for you to accept responsibility for the worst mistake you made in your life, an error so big it destroyed my family and yours,” said Maria Pike, who has now gotten involved in anti-violence work.

“I don’t believe that has happened yet, and I am praying for you to do the right thing because your debt to society is not fully paid.”