In a hail of bullets fired from a car at an intersection in unincorporated Aurora on Halloween night 2004, Duranthony “Randy” Evans was struck four times and died of his wounds.
At the time, police wondered if the 34-year-old man, who worked as a corrections officer at a juvenile facility, could have been targeted for his work–or perhaps his race.
But after a yearlong investigation into the Latin Kings gang in Aurora that enlisted the help of a gang member informant, authorities believe Evans was shot at random, dying at the hands of two teenagers who hoped the slaying would initiate them into the city’s largest street gang.
On Tuesday, authorities charged the two teens they say are responsible for the slaying, Eric Sanchez, 19, and a 15-year-old juvenile, as well as six others involved in other crimes, including two other slayings in 2004 and 2005.
Six of the suspects were taken into custody, and two others remain at large. All are gang members or affiliated with the gang, authorities said.
Authorities from the Kane County sheriff’s office, Aurora Police Department, Kane County state’s attorney’s office and the FBI worked together for the last year to make the arrests after two sheriff’s detectives, John Grimes and Dave Walt, developed an informant in the Latin Kings. State’s Atty. John Barsanti called the charges a “severe body blow” to the foundation of the street gang.
“We have turned one of their own against them and have used him in the situation to obtain information for prosecution. It has cleared up a great deal of cases,” he said Wednesday at a news conference in St. Charles.
“When you can attack the interior structure of a street gang, it really erodes them in ways that are more important and more devastating than any way you can imagine,” Barsanti said.
Sheriff Kenneth Ramsey said Sanchez, of the 500 block of Colorado Avenue, and the juvenile shot Evans as he was driving his car near Farnsworth and North Avenues in unincorporated Aurora.
Gang initiation alleged
Investigators believe the 15-year-old, who was 14 at the time, shot Evans from a car while Sanchez drove. After initially believing the shooting was a byproduct of racial tensions between Hispanics and blacks in Aurora, investigators finally determined that the two might have chosen Evans randomly as a victim in order to get initiated into the Latin Kings.
“It was totally random,” Ramsey said. “They had two young people who definitely were not thinking anything and they just started shooting and they killed him.”
The sheriff’s office also charged Ruben Hernandez, 22, of the 500 block of Claim Street with first-degree murder in the March 19, 2004, shooting of Mauro Salgado, 33. Investigators said Hernandez walked up to Salgado as he was standing in the front of his home in the 700 block of Austin Avenue, opened fire and ran from the scene. Ramsey offered few other details on this crime, except to say that Salgado may have also been involved in a gang.
Bail for Sanchez has been set at $1 million. Hernandez’s bail has been set at $2 million.
Authorities also approved murder charges against a 15-year-old male juvenile in the fatal shooting of Montrell Fluellen, 21, on Nov. 4. The teen, who is still at large, allegedly chased Fluellen on foot and shot him.
Barsanti said he would be seeking to try each of the juveniles as adults.
Aurora Police Chief William Powell said he was particularly disturbed by the young ages of the alleged gang members charged in the slayings.
“This illustrates the cowardly ways the street gangs conduct their operations. They recruit these young children to kill,” he said. “Fourteen- and 15-year-olds should not be shooting people–period.”
Authorities also charged Augustine Montes, 20, who is still at large, with attempted murder in a spate of shootings in recent months and Salvador Gonzalez, 18, of the 700 block of 2nd Avenue with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm in a May 26 shooting that injured a 32-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman in Aurora.
Also charged were Quentin C. Moore, 24, of the 600 block of Sheridan Street with unlawful possession of a controlled substance and unlawful use of a weapon and Jose A. Lozano, 36, of the 700 block of Liberty Street with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.
Evans’ mother said Wednesday his death has haunted her.
Planned to open shoe store
“It hasn’t been an hour went by that I didn’t think about him. There hasn’t been a day that I didn’t cry,” she said. “Many nights I didn’t sleep. I still smell his cologne in the carpet. He was just such a good person.”
When he was killed, he had been married for only a year, had two stepdaughters and was about to start his own shoe store in Mississippi.
“But not only am I sad for me and my son, but I’m sad for another family that also lost a son in another way,” she said. “Every day this past year when I pray, I pray for love and forgiveness. That’s the only thing that’s going to stop it.”
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arozas@tribune.com
