Boyfriend charged in Waukegan tavern killing

A 23-year-old Waukegan man was charged with shooting and killing his girlfriend inside a Waukegan tavern in front of her young daughter early Friday morning, authorities said.

Elpidia Munoz-Garcia, 33, of the 400 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Waukegan, was pronounced dead after the shooting at Taco Bueno Bar, 438 Franklin St., said Waukegan police Cmdr. Joe Florip.

Roberto C. Romero, also of the 400 block of South Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue in Waukegan, was charged with one count of first-degree murder. He was ordered held on $3 million bail Friday after a hearing before Lake County Circuit Judge George Strickland.

Lake County prosecutors said Romero shot Munoz-Garcia about 1:10 a.m. Before the slaying, prosecutors said, Munoz-Garcia sent text messages to Romero's parents, whom she asked to come by the bar and pick up a gun that Romero purportedly possessed.

In the midst of the exchange of the gun between the parents and Romero, he shot Munoz two to three times in the face in the presence of her 9-year-old daughter, prosecutors said.

Munoz-Garcia was pronounced dead at a Waukegan hospital.

Surveillance video depicts the shooting taking place inside the Taco Bueno Bar, prosecutors said. And Romero admitted to police that he shot Munoz-Garcia after obtaining the handgun from his parents' home earlier in the day, prosecutors said.

Florip said police who answered the call to the bar learned Romero had fled, with witnesses providing a make, model and license plate number of the vehicle he was driving.

He said the vehicle was spotted in Round Lake at 1:49 a.m., but Romero returned to the Waukegan bar and was seized outside without incident at 2:15 a.m.