NOTE: Telemundo Chicago has been covering this trial extensively. Read their full coverage in Spanish here.
Diego Uribe showed no emotion as the bailiff read the jury’s verdict: guilty on all six counts of first-degree murder.
"Today’s verdict has been six years in the making," Assistant State's Attorney Risa Lanier said. "A long time for this family who has been hoping for justice for this long."
After two days of deliberations, the jury held the 28-year-old man responsible for the shocking crime in February of 2016, when six members of his own extended family were found murdered in their Gage Park home.
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Their bodies were discovered days later by police on a well-being check.
Months later, Uribe was arrested along with his then-girlfriend, 19-year-old Jafeth Ramos. Both reportedly confessed to detectives. In return for her testimony, charges against Ramos were reduced to armed robbery.
On the stand, Ramos described in disturbing detail how Uribe allegedly shot Maria Martinez first after demanding money from her, then how he allegedly killed the others by striking them with a gun, kneeling on their neck or stabbing them.
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Ramos told the jury Uribe made a 10- and 13-year-old search through the house for valuables. When they found none, she said Uribe stabbed them to death as well.
The boys' father, Armando Cruz, told reporters, "I ultimately want to remember my family with love not sadness."
Prosecutors said Uribe got about $250 in cash, some jewelry, a piggy bank and an Xbox.
The girlfriend's testimony was important to give the jury context, Lanier said, "to tell them what was going on inside that house and give them some possible motive for what happened."
Uribe's defense attorneys don’t dispute that Uribe was there but maintain that the family was instead killed by four masked men who came to their home on the 5700 block of South California to rob them.
But prosecutors said Uribe played upon his family’s trust. That’s why, even though there were six people who could have overpowered him, no one stepped up to stop him.
He is facing life in prison.
Defense attorneys did not talk to reporters after the verdict but did vow to appeal the jury’s decision in a hearing that has been scheduled for Nov. 2.
