Former tenants charged with murder in death of Glen Ellyn store owner

Two weeks before his violent death, Michael Norton evicted two tenants in the Chicago building where his beloved convenience shop was a fixture, authorities revealed Saturday.

The former tenants are accused of returning May 14 in a brazen robbery that ended in the Glen Ellyn man's murder.

On Saturday, Cook County Judge Adam D. Bourgeois ordered Elvin Payton, 26, and Beatrice Rosado, 24, both of Chicago, held without bond on first-degree murder charges.

Police responding to a robbery call about 7:15 p.m. found Norton, his hands and feet bound, face down on the floor, with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.

The 55-year-old man was killed in his store, Norton's Sweet Shop, at 4759 W. North Ave., in Chicago's West Humboldt Park neighborhood.

In Cook County bond court on Saturday, prosecutor Joy Tolbert Nelson said Norton evicted Rosado two weeks earlier from an apartment she rented in his building. Her boyfriend, Payton, also lived there.

Nelson said a witness spotted two men enter the store the night of the murder and later exit while "removing masks from their heads and fleeing the scene." She said the witness later identified Payton.

Nelson said witnesses also spotted Rosado in a van near the crime scene after the murder. The prosecutor said Payton and Rosado made incriminating statements during police questioning about their roles in the crime.

Nelson declined to say if police still are searching for the second unidentified man whom the witness reported seeing at the murder scene.

Payton, who police said is a known gang member, appeared Saturday in bond court wearing a red hoodie. A tearful Rosado, dressed in a black-and-white striped sweater, looked back at her distraught family before being led back to jail. Neither spoke in court.

Her mother, sister and a cousin later talked to reporters outside of court. They argue Rosado was an unwilling participant.

"She's innocent," sister Victoria Rosado said. "She's a good mother. He made her be part of it. He's always been very abusive. He forced her into this."

Payton has three prior felonies in his criminal history for burglary, weapons and drug charges. Rosado, who has four young children, ages 6, 5, 2, and a 3-month-old baby, does not have a violent criminal past.

The victim's family has said Norton once planned to become a stockbroker, but instead took over in 1988 his dad's shop, where he had worked since a teen.

Michael Norton was aware of the dangers of running a shop in such a tough area, his family said, as he had shot and killed an armed robber in 1991, but they said he considered himself a part of that neighborhood.

The avid outdoorsman is survived by a 16-year-old daughter. He was one of nine children. His late father was a Chicago police officer, and his brother, Jim, is a police officer in Oak Park.