Erick Maya. Photo from Romeoville police.
(JOLIET) A west suburban man was sentenced to 122 years in prison Monday for fatally shooting his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend and wounding her mother outside a southwest suburban home in February.
Erick Maya, 24, shot Brianna Valle in the head and wounded her mother, Alicia Guerrero, about 7 a.m. Feb. 13 in the 300 block of Emery Avenue in Romeoville, authorities said previously.
In September, a jury found Maya guilty of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, a statement from the Will County state’s attorney’s office said.
Maya, of the 5600 block of Park Avenue in Cicero, was sentenced to 122 years in prison at a hearing Monday, the state’s attorney’s office said
Prosecutors claimed he took a cab from his home in Cicero to Romeoville, then crept up on the pair as they sat in an SUV outside their home.
He shot Valle first, then shot Guerrero in the neck as she hovered over her wounded daughter, begging him not to shoot, according to police and prosecutors. Valle, a freshman at Romeoville High School, died two days later.
Guerrero survived and testified against Maya during a two-week trial, saying she struggled to stop the older man from seeing her daughter, prosecutors said.
But after she moved the family to Romeoville to get away from Maya, the relationship turned hostile, she said. Prosecutors claimed Maya sent the girl text messages threatening to harm her family.
After the shooting, Maya ran and hid under a nearby porch, where police found him several hours later.
“This cowardly manipulator killed an innocent girl because he couldn’t stand that she wanted to escape his control. And then he shot her mother, who was fortunate to survive this vicious attack,” state’s attorney James Glasgow said in a statement following the sentencing.
“Erick Maya will now spend the rest of his life in prison, where he will never control even the smallest aspect of his own life, and where he will never be free to harm another young girl or her family,” Glasgow said.
