Bond set at $3 million in 1994 Prospect Heights murder

A Cook County judge today set a $3 million bond for a man charged in the murder 15 years ago of a Prospect Heights resident.

Moises Bahena, 61, had fled to Mexico after the killing but was returned to O'Hare International Airport Wednesday night, where Prospect Heights police took him into custody. At a bond hearing at circuit court in Rolling Meadows, Judge Jill Marisie increased his bond from the $500,000 set in a 1995 arrest warrant at the request of prosecutors.

Bahena is accused of shooting Wenceslao Gonzalez, 23, with a semiautomatic rifle in the 800 block of Piper Lane in the Country Pines complex on Christmas morning 1994, police said. Police later recovered a .22-caliber rifle in some bushes near the murder scene.

Bahena and the victim had been involved in a fight earlier that evening between two groups of friends. Bahena left the fight and went home to retrieve a semiautomatic rifle. He returned to the scene and shot the victim six times, Prospect Heights Police Cmdr. Al Steffen said. Police interviewed witnesses and neighbors at the time who identified Bahena as the shooter.

In early 1995, an arrest warrant was issued, but Bahena had fled to Mexico. The FBI issued a federal warrant against Bahena for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

In 2005, while serving an unrelated search warrant at the home of one of Bahena's relatives, police discovered information leading to Bahena's possible whereabouts in Mexico, Steffen said. In September, the FBI and Mexican authorities tracked down Bahena through his relatives, arresting him at his home outside Acapulco, authorities said.

Police are working with the Cook County state's attorney's office to locate some of the witnesses to the killing.

• Daily Herald staff writer Kim Pohl contributed to this report.