Authorities learn long-missing fugitive has died

Cook County prosecutors finally were able to close the case on the July 1991 stabbing death of Arlington Park employee Gerardo Romero on Thursday, after they learned a fugitive who had been convicted of his murder has been dead for years.

Simon Vicencio and two other men had each been sentenced to five years in prison for killing the 18-year-old Romero. But Vicencio fled the jurisdiction, said a spokesman for the Cook County state's attorney's office.

A warrant was issued for his arrest, and the case went cold until an Arlington Heights detective working old cases managed to locate the defendant's brother in Kentucky, said Sgt. Mike Hernandez of the criminal investigations unit.

The brother informed the detective that Vicencio had died. On Thursday, before Rolling Meadows presiding Judge Joseph Urso, prosecutors presented a death certificate from Mexico indicating the 31-year-old Vicencio died there in 1993.