Still without an arrest, investigators on Thursday continued piecing together leads in the execution-style killing of a Rolling Meadows boy whose body was found slumped over a curb earlier this week in the Busse Woods forest preserve.
Police were guarded with many details of the case, but said an autopsy Thursday showed the boy, Manuel Romero, 16, had been shot several times in the head at close range with a small-caliber weapon.
Cook County Forest Preserve police also said they have begun narrowing the time frame for the slaying, believing that Romero, who was a student at Rolling Meadows High School, was killed sometime around midnight Tuesday, several hours before a maintenance worker found Romero’s body as he was opening the gate to the parking lot about 6:20 a.m.
Beyond that, police said, the case remains wide open. Investigators, however, said they are following a number of leads, including reports that Romero may have been the victim of a dispute stemming from a couple of fights over the past several weeks at the high school.
Police and Romero’s family said the boy had come home from school late Tuesday afternoon, eaten with his family and then left the family’s apartment building in the 2400 block of Algonquin Road that evening.
His family said he never stayed away the entire night, so when his mother awoke the next morning, she had one of Romero’s six sisters call police and then began walking the large apartment complex, asking if anyone had seen her son.
Friends said Romero had nearly scuffled Monday with the same boy he fought with several weeks ago–a fight that his family said got Romero suspended from school for several days.
Just before he left the family’s home Tuesday evening he received a phone call, one of Romero’s younger sisters said. Not long after, according to police and family, Romero was seen getting into a sports car.
