20 years for man who ran over ex-girlfriend in Yorktown mall parking lot
Jose Aguirre believed that if he could not have Yesenia Rodriguez, no one should.
When she broke off their seven-year relationship for the second time, he repeatedly texted her and sent threatening Facebook messages.
He went so far as to call their 7-year-old son Aug. 26, 2018, and tell him, "Your mother will die tomorrow."
The next day, he tried to make that happen by running her over in the Yorktown Center shopping mall parking lot in Lombard.
For that, he was sentenced Monday to 20 years in prison.
"I think the courts need to send a message to people who think 'if I can't have her no one will.' This conduct cannot and should not be tolerated by this society," DuPage County Judge Brian Telander said in court.
Aguirre pleaded guilty to attempted murder in October, in a deal where prosecutors agreed to not ask for more than 23 years in prison. Attempted murder has a sentence range of 6 to 30 years.
Aguirre must serve 85% of his sentence but will receive credit for 532 days he has been held in jail.
Rodriguez, of Cicero, spoke of the effect the crime has had on her. She suffered broken ribs, a broken jaw, internal bleeding, five broken vertebrae and four pelvic fractures. She spent almost a month in the hospital, undergoing three surgeries, and still takes medication related to the blood loss she suffered, she said. She could not return to work as a housekeeper at a Lombard apartment building, so she lost her job.
Her son is still scared to hear his father's name mentioned, she said.
"The trauma of what I have lived will remain with me," Rodriguez said.
Aguirre, 49, also of Cicero, cried quietly during Rodriguez's testimony, and that of two police detectives. He refused to look at a store-security video showing the attack and photographs of Rodriguez in the emergency department. He turned away when she testified.
Aguirre had a woman read a statement for him. In it, he repeatedly said he regretted the "error" he made, said he doesn't understand why he did it, that "I am the type of person who has never had any problems" with other people, and he has changed while in jail, including attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
"I will never leave that program," he said.
Telander said the crime was not an error or mistake. "It is a cold, calculated, planned-out criminal act," he said.
"I am having a little trouble with the defendant's statement. ... I don't think I heard one word of regret for the suffering the young lady endured."
Rodriguez was hit about 7:30 a.m. as she walked near the Carson Pirie Scott store from a Pace bus stop to her job at the apartments. She recognized Aguirre's Ford Explorer and tried to avoid him. She testified she saw him laughing before he struck her.
Later, police said, Aguirre went to his adult daughter's house, told her he had killed Rodriguez and he would flee to Mexico.
His truck was spotted in a Walmart parking lot in Northlake, and the next day at a gasoline station there, where he was arrested. A Lombard detective testified Monday they found a GPS navigation device on the passenger seat, with an address in Ocala, Florida, programmed. That was the house of one of his cousins, who told police Aguirre had called to say he was coming to visit.