Witness IDs Aurora man as shooter in ‘07 murder

A reputed gang member saw his ex-girlfriend identify him in court Tuesday as the shooter who killed a man in an Aurora parking lot nearly four years ago after the victim caught the defendant and his friends burglarizing a car.

Elvia Patterson testified her then-boyfriend, Enrique Torres, didn’t hesitate before opening fire on 35-year-old Edgar Hill. She said the victim, who had been badly beaten, was lying in the fetal position when Torres shot him multiple times from about a foot away.

Assistant DuPage County State’s Attorney Steven Knight said the April 14, 2007, shooting outside a Super 8 motel on Aurora’s far-east side happened after Hill, of Hillside, confronted the defendant and his friends as they burglarized a car. He said the victim was severely beaten before Torres retrieved a gun from Patterson’s car and shot him twice in the back and once in the shoulder.

“Two worlds collided violently that night,” Knight said.

A day after Hill’s killing, Torres, 27, of Aurora, was arrested along with Patterson, then 18, and another teen in connection with an unrelated shooting in Kane County.

Under cross-examination Tuesday, Patterson acknowledged she avoided prison in the unrelated case partly due to her testimony against Torres. But she denied, as defense attorney Frank Tedesso suggested, that she would “say just about anything to avoid prison.”

Patterson testified she also heard Torres confess to the killing in a conversation with a third person on the day of Hill’s murder. She said she later accompanied him to dispose of the murder weapon through a friend, but said the friend wasn’t home.

Torres’ bench trial before DuPage Judge Robert Kleeman resumes Thursday.