A final deadline of Aug. 10 has been set for the filing of defense motions in the murder case of Jorge Torrez, charged with killing two young Zion girls in 2005.
Judge Daniel Shanes set the date Friday morning after defense attorney LaTonya Burton had requested a 21-day extension from a previous deadline for the expected filing of motions to limit DNA and informant evidence in the case.
Shanes initially was going to allow the full 21 days because he said that fit in with his trial calendar, but when he listed a date and Burton said lead attorney Jed Stone would be out of town at that time, the judge went with Aug. 10.
Burton said the defense would meet that deadline. Assistant State’s Attorney Ari Fisz had objected to the 21-day delay and said the state provided its discovery evidence to the defense 18 months ago.
Torrez was present at the hearing but did not speak. He is being held in Lake County Jail for his eventual trial for the Zion killings -— a hiatus from a death row cell where he had been held after his conviction for a separate murder.
Torrez, a former Zion resident, is charged with the Mother’s Day 2005 slaying of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias in the Beulah Park Forest Preserve in Zion.
The girls were stabbed numerous times in what was described by law enforcement as a savage attack.
Once the motions are filed, a hearing will be scheduled on whether DNA evidence allegedly linking Torrez to the 2005 slayings of two girls in Zion can be used at his upcoming trial.
Stone has said that he has an expert report on the DNA involved in the case and that the result of DNA testing planned to be used by the state as evidence in the case “does not meet scientific standards of admissibility.”
Stone said he also plans to file a motion barring what he claims as “hearsay” evidence involving an informant, now dead, in a previous out-of-state trial in which Torrez was convicted of murder.
A concrete trial date for Torrez has not yet been scheduled.
Jerry Hobbs, the father of Laura Hobbs, had previously confessed to the killings and was charged, but he was later exonerated by DNA that pointed to Torrez, according to authorities.
Stone has said he will assert Hobbs was the killer as part of his defense of Torrez.
Torrez has already been convicted of the strangulation murder of Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Amanda Snell, 20, who lived in the same barracks as Torrez at the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va.
A former Marine, Torrez has also been convicted of abducting three young women in Virginia in February 2010, one of whom he raped, sodomized, strangled and left for dead.
Torrez was sentenced to five life sentences at the state level in Virginia and is sentenced to death at the federal level for Snell’s murder.
Twitter @jimnewton5
