Murder trial begins for man allegedly part of drug and robbery crew authorities have said exalted ‘Santa Muerte’
One snowy evening in February 2011, Mohammad Adan heard a banging on the door of his Edgewater apartment.
It wasn’t quite a knock, Adan told Cook County jurors Monday. It was more like someone was kicking it, or bashing it with their head. He opened the door.
On the other side was Louis Leyva-Garcia, Adan said, covered in blood, his hands bound behind his back, his throat slashed ear to ear.
He was the only survivor of an attack in the apartment down the hall. Two other men, Joel Diaz and Ramiro Mendoza, were killed, their throats slashed in the same fashion. Authorities say the attack was carried out by three men who belonged to a vicious drug and robbery crew linked to more than a dozen slayings from 2009 to 2011.
More than 10 years later, Raul Segura-Rodriguez is the first to stand trial on charges related to the Edgewater slayings.
The accused ringleader, Arturo Ibarra, was shot and killed by police during a car chase and shootout while he and his alleged accomplices fled the apartment building. The man who allegedly cut their throats, Augustin Toscano, is awaiting trial.
Opening statements began Monday for Segura-Rodriguez, accused of holding the victims at gunpoint while they were robbed and stabbed. His trial on charges including first-degree murder is slated to last through the week.
Prosecutors said all three men acted in concert, luring the victims in with promises to do a drug deal when their real intent was to “was to take the victims’ money, slash their throats and kill them, and leave no witnesses behind,” Assistant State’s Attorney Nina Ricci told jurors.
Since they worked together, Ricci said, Segura-Rodriguez is legally responsible for the slayings and their chaotic aftermath, including the chase and shootout that injured a police officer.
Segura-Rodriguez’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Stephen Journey, stressed to the jury that his client is not accused of having personally hurt anyone. It was Toscano who slit the men’s throats and Ibarra, now deceased, who shot the officer, he noted.
“Raul Segura-Rodriguez did not kill anybody, did not shoot anybody, did not attempt to kill anybody,” he said. “They killed the man who should be on trial today, and they have Augustin Toscano to prosecute.”
What jurors did not hear Monday is that Segura-Rodriguez and his alleged accomplices are believed by authorities to be worshippers of La Santa Muerte — Saint Death — some of whose adherents have been characterized as members of a violent death cult.
Ibarra and Segura-Rodriguez’s trucks had Santa Muerte stickers, according to court records; during a 2010 arrest for traffic violations, police found that Ibarra had a wad of cash on him wrapped around a picture of the saint. Roberto Cerda, an alleged enforcer for the crew, had a tattoo on his shoulder of Santa Muerte holding a dog by a chain.
As part of a lengthy mission targeting the crew, police were surveilling Ibarra, Toscano and Segura-Rodriguez as they entered and exited the Edgewater building, records show.
And, Ricci told jurors, as they left, Ibarra had a smile on his face.
More than 10 years after Louis Leyva-Garcia, mangled and bound, kicked at his neighbors’ doors for help, he took the stand at Segura-Rodriguez’s trial.
There is still a hole in his throat. He can talk, hoarsely, and sometimes he holds his hand over his throat so the air doesn’t escape and he can speak more clearly, he said.
Through a Spanish interpreter he told jurors that Ibarra threw him to the ground, tied his wrists together with his own belt. Two other men were on the ground next to him, he said.
“I just begged for my life, I asked them not to do anything because of my children,” he said.
Segura-Rodriguez, holding them at gunpoint, told him to shut up, he testified.
He saw Toscano approach one of the other men on the ground, pull his head back by his hair and slit his throat, he said. What happened next, prosecutors asked.
Leyva-Garcia paused and looked up, as if to blink away tears.
“He cut my throat,” Leyva-Garcia said. He heard the other injured man making the same noise as a slaughtered animal.
“His throat was making the same noise as mine, like an animal,” he said through the interpreter.
It is a miracle, defense attorney Journey acknowledged in opening statements, that Leyva-Garcia is still alive.
But all the same, he is a liar, Journey said, and he was a major drug dealer, incentivized to tell authorities what they want to hear so he could avoid criminal charges or deportation.
“He lies about whatever is inconvenient to him,” Journey said. “And what is inconvenient to him is to acknowledge the fact that he’s a drug dealer. What he will portray to you is he is some poor guy who doesn’t know a single thing and just happened to be there.”
On cross-examination, Journey cast doubt on Leyva-Garcia’s account of the moments before the attack. Leyva-Garcia said he got in a truck with Ibarra, Segura-Rodriguez and Toscano despite not knowing them at all, and went along with them and the other two victims to the Edgewater apartment for some “errand” he knew nothing about.
