One of two men accused of fatally bludgeoning and robbing a 49-year-old father hanging holiday lights allegedly said, “Christmas is around the corner” and he had no money for his kids, prosecutors said Friday during their bond hearing.
The attack happened during a “4-hour violent crime spree” in which 13 other victims were also terrorized, said Cook County Judge Maryam Ahmad, who denied bail for Pedro Mendiola, 21, and Moises Barrios, 23.
Mendiola and Barrios are charged with murder in the death of Jose Tellez and multiple counts of armed robbery and aggravated battery while using a crowbar and an aluminum baseball bat in 13 separate attacks during a four-hour stretch on Dec. 11 from the city’s Northwest Side to the Southwest Side.
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Wearing the same black and gray hoodies and driving a red Dodge Intrepid, registered to Barrios’ mother, their alleged tcrime wave happened from about 4 to 8 p.m.
After allegedly robbing and beating seven people, including a postal worker who’d just delivered a package, they spotted Tellez, who was hanging Christmas lights outside his house in the 3500 block of West 55th Street about 6:25 p.m., Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said.
Tellez’s 14-year-old daughter heard her dad screaming, looked out the window and saw the suspects — Barrios allegedly beating her dad with a bat while Mendiola stood near him, Murphy said.
The girl alerted her brother, and she ran outside to find their dad face down on the grass in a pool of blood with his hands over his head, and his cellphone gone, Murphy said.
Tellez was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead of blunt force trauma, Murphy said.
After six subsequent armed robberies and beatings in the next hour including the attack of a man sitting inside a car with his wife and 4-year-old son, the two ended the crime wave in the 3400 block of West 54th Street, Murphy said.
Chicago police were contacted and the two were charged after multiple witnesses identified them as their alleged attackers, according to Murphy.
Additionally, DNA and blood found on the crowbar matched that of Tellez and Barrios and Mendiola’s fingerprint was also pulled from the bat, according to Murphy.
During interviews with police, Barrios told officers he was the driver of the Intrepid but denied taking part in any of the “offenses” while Mendiola claimed robbing people was Barrios’ idea and said “Christmas was around the corner” and he had no money for his kids, Murphy said.
Both men have an “extensive” criminal history, Murphy said.
While asking the judge to consider setting a bond, the defendants’ attorney, Julie Koehler, said the men were not flight risks and contended of the charges that “all of these are allegations” and nothing has been proven.
Before denying bail for both, Ahmad said that many people in the community fell “prey” to Barrios and Mendiola: a father, a mail carrier, and “people who were just walking down the street, people driving, doing everyday things.”
Barrios, of the 3100 block of South 54th Avenue, and Mendiola, of the 5000 block of West Byron Street, both of whom were free on bond for unrelated cases at the time of the attacks, are due back in court March 23.