Teenage boy charged with shooting mother’s boyfriend to death in Avondale

A 17-year-old boy was ordered held without bail Wednesday for allegedly shooting his mother’s boyfriend to death in Avondale earlier this month.

Cook County prosecutors Wednesday gave no motive as to why Victor Quiroz allegedly shot 36-year-old Usbaldo Arbelo 13 times at the home Quiroz shares with his mother, although the boy’s defense attorney speculated that the shooting may have been self defense.

Quiroz was working at a pizzeria and was preparing to go to college or trade school after graduating high school in December, his attorney said.

Quiroz’s mother and Arbelo had gone out drinking for Arbelo’s birthday the night before the Nov. 5 shooting, prosecutors said.

When the couple came home early the next morning, Quiroz and Arbelo allegedly got into an argument about a broken rear door that Quiroz had complained about earlier, prosecutors said. Quiroz’s mother eventually went to sleep but woke up a short time later to several “loud bangs” and found Arbelo bleeding in a bedroom, prosecutors said. Her son then allegedly passed her in a hallway and told his mom he loved her and was sorry before running out the back door of the home, in the 3500 block of North Hamlin Ave.

The shots were also heard by a neighbor, prosecutors said. Quiroz’s mother asked that neighbor to call police and sat down in a hallway and cried until officers arrived, prosecutors said.

Arbelo had been struck 13 times and died before he could be taken to a hospital, prosecutors said.

Seventeen spent 9-mm shell casings were collected at the scene by authorities.

Quiroz turned himself in to police on Monday and was charged as an adult with first-degree murder.

He is expected back in court Dec. 14.