Suspect pleads not guilty to 1997 DuPage murder
A man accused of fatally shooting a father of five near Downers Grove more than 14 years ago pleaded not guilty Friday.
Jose Alfredo Ruvalcaba-Quezada, 32, entered the formal plea in front of DuPage County Judge George Bakalis, authorities said.
Prosecutors said they would seek a sentence of up to natural life in prison if the defendant is convicted of murdering Jose J. Ortiz in December 1997. Ortiz, 39, was shot once in the chest as he walked to his car from his Saylor Street home in unincorporated DuPage.
Ruvalcaba-Quezada was charged in 2008 but was not apprehended until his January drunken driving arrest in South Carolina, where he was living under the alias Victor Lopez, authorities said.
Assistant State’s Attorney Steven Knight said the defendant would face a possible life sentence if he is found to have killed Ortiz on contract, or in a “cold, calculated and premeditated manner.”
At an earlier court hearing, Knight said authorities uncovered a diary in which Ruvalcaba-Quezada described shooting a man with a 9 mm handgun. The defendant wrote he was paid “good money” to carry out the killing as the victim left for work carrying a lunchbox.
Prosecutors said the suspect was about 18 years old and lived in the Joliet area at the time of the murder. Several grand jury witnesses described seeing him with a gun before the slaying, and with money, jewelry and new clothes afterward, Knight has said.
Ruvalcaba-Quezada fled Illinois after the murder and was deported to Mexico in 1999 after becoming the target of a Utah rape investigation, prosecutors said. He illegally re-entered the U.S. in 2003 and has since lived with a wife in South Carolina, prosecutors said.
Police said the defendant confessed to Ortiz’s murder after being identified through fingerprints on bullets and shell casings recovered from the scene.
Ruvalcaba-Quezada remains in the county jail without bond. He returns to court April 23.