Aurora man gets 70 years for murder of ex-Naperville resident

A 32-year-old Aurora man will spend the rest of his life in prison for gunning down an Aurora music store owner in 2006.

Kane County Judge Timothy Sheldon sentenced Christopher R. House to 70 years in prison this week for the slaying of Antoine Bell, 28, formerly of Naperville.

House must serve 100 percent of his sentence.

House was convicted of Bell's murder in September 2006. He was supposed to be sentenced later that year, but filed a litany of handwritten motions over the past year arguing for a new trial and claiming his public defender was ineffective.

Sheldon denied all those motions.

On Jan. 6, 2006, House was driving in his vehicle with three others. House saw Bell in a car that was stopped in the 1100 block of Grand Boulevard. House parked his car nearby, walked to the passenger's side of Bell's vehicle and fired 10 shots.

Eight of them hit Bell and he died a short time later.

In rendering a verdict last year after a six-day bench trial, Sheldon said House's knowledge of Bell and statements witnesses said he made that he didn't like Bell were key to the conviction.

Four witnesses placed House at the scene of the shooting, and two identified him as having a unique two-toned .40-caliber handgun that was later found behind a home and matched to the shooting.

Bell planned to move to Atlanta that month to open a second record store with his cousin. His shop on Galena Boulevard in Aurora sold CDs and offered young artists, like himself, a place to record in a backroom studio.

House had a lengthy criminal record before he killed Bell, according to court records. House was incarcerated for aggravated criminal sexual abuse in 1991, possession of cannabis in 2000, resisting arrested in 2001 and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession of a firearm by a felon in 2002.