In the first minutes of September 3, 2018, 39-year-old Hispanic male Juan Alberto Mendez-Ramos was struck by a single gunshot while at a backyard gathering in the 5000 block of West 30th Street in Cicero.
Officers responding to reports of shots fired found the 39-year-old male wounded in the upper chest; he was rushed to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, where he was pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m.
The Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide.
Although the killing happened in Cicero, public reports noted that the 39-year-old male lived in Momence in Kankakee County, underscoring how far friends and family traveled to share the late-summer night that turned tragic.
Investigators quickly focused on a man who had been at the same gathering. Police arrested 25-year-old Alejandro Carrillo and recovered a handgun, according to early statements.
Prosecutors said Carrillo was charged with first-degree murder; a judge at the Maywood Courthouse set bond at $3 million as the case moved forward.
Those first hours after the shooting sketched the outline of a sudden, close-range act that ended the 39-year-old male's life and set in motion a long courtroom reckoning.
Court records later filled in the night's uneasy details.
Testimony described a backyard party where the 39-year-old male sat with a friend when Carrillo approached, upset over the victim's relationship with Carrillo's aunt.
Moments later, Carrillo produced a loaded handgun and fired once from only a few steps away, then set the weapon down as others scrambled to secure it before police arrived.
Following a bench trial, the court found Carrillo guilty of first-degree murder and, on November 8, 2019, sentenced him to 45 years in prison; an appellate panel affirmed the conviction in 2021, rejecting arguments that the shooting should be reduced to second-degree murder or involuntary manslaughter.
