Nine-year fugitive pleads guilty in 2000 Elgin murder

The 11½-year wait for justice for Matthew Kimble’s family and friends is almost over.

Roberto Vences, 29, a former Gilberts resident who hid out in Mexico for nine years, quietly entered a cold plea last week to charges of second-degree murder and aggravated discharge of a firearm in the death of Kimble, according to court records. Essentially, that’s a guilty plea offered with no conditions on sentencing.

Kimble, who was 19 at the time, was gunned down April 9, 2000, while trying to break up a fight outside a party on the 200 block of Illinois Avenue on the city’s east side.

Judge Timothy Sheldon, who accepted the deal in which prosecutors dropped first-degree murder charges, will sentence Vences on Nov. 21.

Under the old charges, Vences faced a maximum sentence of 107 years in prison, according to court records.

The top prison sentence he could get in November is 30 years.

Assistant State’s Attorney Pam Monaco, the lead prosecutor on the case, declined to comment. Defense attorney Timothy Mahoney could not be reached.

Vences, who was an 18-year-old gang member at the time, was charged immediately after the murder of Kimble, a 1998 Elgin High School graduate who was taking classes at Elgin Community College.

Vences was on the run and profiled on “America’s Most Wanted” before authorities tracked him down in spring 2009 at his family’s ranch in Veracruz, Mexico. He’s been held in lieu of bail since his return to Kane County in May 2009.

Kimble’s family has since started a scholarship fund in his honor and fundraisers are held each year at Elgin Lanes.

Kimble would have turned 31 this past August, and numerous friends and family members wished him a happy birthday on a memorial Facebook page created by his younger sister, Christine Kimble.

“Happy 31st Birthday, Can’t believe it’s been so long,” wrote another sister, Felicia Long, on Aug. 11. “I love and miss you and I wish you could be here to meet your nephew I know he would of loved to have you around. I show him pics of you, though I don’t have many, and let him know you are always there looking down on him from heaven.”

Guilty: Suspect has been held in lieu of bail since May 2009