Glen Ellyn man found guilty of raping, murdering ex-wife
A Glen Ellyn man was found guilty Thursday of first-degree murder for strangling his ex-wife in October 2011 in the apartment they shared.
A DuPage County jury of seven men and five women also found Juan Granados guilty of criminal sexual assault of the victim, Nancy Bustos.
The jury deliberated about three hours.
Granados, now 42, assaulted and strangled 35-year-old Bustos in their Briar Lane apartment Oct. 15, 2011. He then took their 4-year-old son to Granados' mother's residence in Hanover Park, exchanged vehicles with a brother, and drove to Mexico.
He was extradited back to Illinois in 2017.
The son and the couple's daughter have been raised by Bustos' relatives, including her mother and father.
Granados and Bustos divorced in 2010 and she married another man. Granados and Bustos' father testified that she did so to help the man obtain legal residency in the United States.
Bustos' brother and one of her sisters testified that she had told them Granados abused her while they were married. The sister said she noticed bruises on Bustos' face, and the brother said Bustos had called him for help one time, and he could hear screaming.
Juan and Nancy's daughter, who was 9 at the time, told investigators in 2011 that she knew her parents didn't get along because her father would hit her mother "all the time, for no reason." A video of that interview was played for the jury. In it, the daughter recalls Granados hitting Bustos with a shoe, and dragging Bustos by the hair. The girl also testified last week.
She attended court Thursday and left sobbing after the verdict was announced.
Closing arguments
In his closing argument, defense attorney Neil Levine urged the jury to believe his client, who testified Tuesday that the sexual intercourse he and Nancy "Nena" Bustos had Oct. 15, 2011, was consensual. He urged them to disregard what Bustos told relatives and others about having been abused by Granados during their marriage, which ended in 2010.
"We (society) don't like to speak ill of the dead," Levine said.
But he pointed to lies Bustos told about her age;, lies about how she met her employer; and how she lied to the government when she married a man shortly after divorcing Granados as part of a scheme to get legal residency for the second husband.
"So yeah, we do have to speak ill of Nena," Levine said.
DuPage County Assistant State's Attorney Jennifer Lindt pooh-poohed the alleged age lie.
"Call the media, a woman lied about her age," she said.
She said Granados had told Bustos he would kill her and flee to Mexico. She disputed Granados' contention that he became enraged and strangled Bustos because she had sent him videos of her having sex with another man, and of her boyfriend stripping.
"Even if they (the videos) do exist, so what? It doesn't make what he did OK," Lindt said.
Levine argued that if Granados had planned to kill Bustos that day and flee to Mexico, he wouldn't have discussed dinner plans with his brothers, and would have kept the $850 in cash he used to try to pay rent.
Granados had admitted to killing Bustos, including in a letter he sent to her parents 10 days after the death.
On Wednesday, DuPage County Judge Brian Telander denied the defense's request to let the jury consider convicting Granados of lesser charges of second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.
His next court date is April 17. He could be sentenced to a maximum of 75 years in prison total.
"This afternoon, a jury properly found that Juan Granados is the man responsible for the senseless murder of Nancy Bustos," State's Attorney Robert Berlin said in a news release. "Their verdict however, will not bring Nancy back to her children, her family and the countless others who loved her. Their loss will be with them forever."