Man gets 80-year term for Naperville attack
For causing "18 minutes of terror," Gregory C. Hernandez will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
A judge re-sentenced him Friday to 80 years in prison for a 1998 attack on an elderly Naperville couple while burglarizing their home.
In a sometimes tearful oratory, the apologetic 45-year-old former Chicago man asked for forgiveness.
"I humbly apologize," he said to the victims. "I was on drugs. I was drinking. That person doesn't exist. It kills me every day when I think about what I did to you."
DuPage County Circuit Court Judge Robert Anderson said he could not ignore Hernandez's criminal history, which includes robberies, stabbings, burglaries and several prison stints.
In June 2002, Anderson sentenced Hernandez to 90 years in prison for the Naperville crime, but a state appeals court reversed an attempted murder conviction, among other counts, after finding the elderly couple's injuries were not life-threatening.
Hernandez's father, sister and a priest testified Friday that he suffered a horrific childhood and was traumatized at 13 when his mother was fatally stabbed in 1976. No one was ever convicted.
Afterward, Hernandez had to be hospitalized for an emotional breakdown but never had any real treatment.
Defense attorney Nicholas Kirkeles sought a prison term that would allow Hernandez to live as a free man when he is older. He noted Hernandez's rough childhood and his efforts to change.
Hernandez continued his education behind bars, receiving a culinary degree, and wrote and directed five plays. He's mostly avoided trouble these past 10 years in prison.
"Life without hope is not life," Kirkeles said. "It is a slow death. I would ask that you punish him, but I would ask that you don't execute him."
Hernandez also is serving a 30-year term for the attempted murder of a Chicago police officer, which occurred days after the Naperville attack before his arrest. The officer was trying to question Hernandez about a robbery and was not injured.
"He probably will kill someone if he gets out of prison," prosecutor Joseph Ruggiero told the judge in urging a 100-year prison term. "There's nothing anyone can do to protect innocent victims from him."
Police believe Hernandez, a cook who had been living in a local motel, targeted the Naperville couple because a sign in front of their house advertised a home-based clock and watch repair shop on the 200 block of North West Street.
The couple awoke about 2:45 a.m. Dec. 7, 1998, when a man claiming to be a police officer entered their home and warned them to stay upstairs because they were being burglarized. The husband, then 71, did not believe the intruder and ran for help. The man caught up with him in the kitchen and began beating him with metal-cutting shears.
His wife, who interrupted the attack, screamed, "Stop! Don't kill my husband," and the intruder struck the woman, then 69, on the head.
He dragged them into their workshop and demanded they open a safe. The attacker hit both victims again before making off with $2,000, the husband's wedding ring and more than 20 watches.
"We survived 18 minutes of terror," the wife said at the 2002 sentencing hearing. "We will forever be tormented because of what that guy did to us."
Police linked Hernandez to the home invasion after matching physical evidence from the crime scene and a photo identification of Hernandez by the victims.
Detectives found Hernandez's fingerprint on a window and both victims' blood on his black leather jacket. In addition, police found some of the stolen watches on Hernandez during his Dec. 26, 1998, arrest in Chicago.
Anderson called the crime a tragedy for both sides.
The victims will be tormented forever, he said, and Hernandez threw away his life. The judge said Hernandez is intelligent and articulate. He must serve 85 percent of the term, meaning he has 68 years left. He isn't eligible for parole until the age 103.
"I take no pleasure in imposing this sentence," Anderson said. "I find it's necessary to protect the public and deter others."