Shortly before 2 p.m. on April 20, 1990, 15-year-old Peter Cruz was attacked by a man who had a pit bull on a leash near the corner of Drake and Palmer Streets in Chicago, Illinois.
Witnesses said that the dog had Cruz’s leg in its mouth when the man broke a beer bottle on the curb and sliced Cruz on the side of his face. At about that time, 15-year-old Wilfredo Torres, who was a friend of Cruz, approached with a stick to try to defend Cruz. The man pulled a silver handgun from his waistband and pointed it at Torres.
Torres fled into an alley. He later told police he heard two gunshots.
Edwina Hawk, a 27-year-old woman who lived nearby, told police the gunman, who was Black and wearing a gray hoodie under an Army jacket, had ordered the pit bull to attack Cruz. She said the man shot Cruz in the arm and then in the chest before he ran away with the dog.
Chicago police detectives, including Reynaldo Guevera, concluded the incident was gang related because Cruz was a member of the Imperial Gangsters street gang. They focused on 22-year-old Tyrece Williams after learning that the night before the shooting, Williams’s brother Antonio had been stabbed.
On May 12, 1990, the detectives created a photographic lineup that included Williams’s photograph and showed it to Torres. The detectives said that Torres identified Williams as the gunman.
Later that day, police arrested Williams and put him in a live lineup. Torres identified him in the lineup, as did Hawk and a third witness, 44-year-old James Biedron.
Williams denied committing the crime. He said that he had gone to the hospital about 4 a.m. on the morning of the shooting after learning that his brother was being treated for a stab wound. Williams said he later returned home, which was not far from the shooting, where he was living with his girlfriend, 22-year-old Joethel Griffin, and did not leave the house during the afternoon. In their report of the interview, the detectives said that Williams suspected an older brother was responsible and acted to avenge Antonio’s stabbing.
The detectives interviewed Griffin and obtained a statement from her saying that Williams had left the home sometime after 1 p.m., prior to the shooting, to get cigarettes.
Williams was charged with first-degree murder, armed violence, aggravated unlawful restraint and unlawful possession of a weapon by a convicted felon.
On April 8, 1991, Williams went to trial in Cook County Circuit Court. He waived his right to a jury and chose to have Judge Donald Joyce decide the case.
Torres testified and identified Williams as the gunman. He said he didn’t see the shots being fired but heard them as he fled.
Hawk testified that her three-year-old son heard a commotion outside and called her to the open window of their apartment. She identified Williams as the gunman and testified that Williams “told the pit bull to attack.” She said that he pulled a silver pistol and shot Cruz in the arm.
When asked if she heard the gunman say anything, she testified, “He told [Cruz] to pray for his life and he shot him again, in the chest.”
Biedron identified Williams as the man he saw walking by his window with a pit bull on a leash moments before the shooting. Biedron said he heard a gunshot. “I saw the same guy with the dog standing over a guy,” he testified.
A stipulation was entered into evidence that Cruz died of a gunshot wound to the chest.
The defense called 19-year-old Edwin Garcia, who testified that he was in an apartment with friends. Garcia testified that he ran outside after hearing the gunshots and saw the gunman fleeing with the dog. He testified that the gunman was not Williams.
The prosecution, during cross-examination, suggested that Garcia was a member of the Spanish Cobras street gang, a rival gang of the Imperial Gangsters, and that he was falsely testifying to protect Williams, although no evidence was presented that Williams was in a gang.
Williams’s defense lawyer did not call Griffin to establish an alibi because of the statement in the police report that Williams left their home before shooting.
On April 10, 1991, Judge Joyce convicted Williams of first-degree murder, armed violence and unlawful possession of a firearm. In May 1991, at the sentencing hearing, Williams insisted he was innocent. “I did not kill this person, your honor. I never saw this person in my life.”
Judge Joyce sentenced Williams to 35 years in prison. The conviction was upheld on appeal and in November 2009, Williams was released on parole.
By then, evidence of corruption by Detective Guevara had begun to accumulate. Dozens of murder convictions would be vacated and charges dismissed based on evidence that Guevara physically abused witnesses to obtain false statements and identifications. He also physically abused suspects to obtain false confessions.
In February 2024, Williams’s lawyers at the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School, Lyla Wasz-Piper and Joshua Tepfer, filed a petition seeking to vacate Williams’s conviction.
“After decades of advocacy and litigation in Illinois Courts, there is no longer a viable dispute: Former Chicago police detective Reynaldo Guevara was a corrupt police officer who routinely violated citizens constitutional rights when conducting homicide investigations,” the petition declared.
“Courts and juries alike have concluded that during his lengthy career, Guevara engaged in a range of abhorrent and unconstitutional misconduct, including manipulating, threatening, and psychologically and physically coercing witnesses and accused suspects; perjury; and the outright fabrication of statements, police reports, and other evidence.”
By that time, nearly 50 convictions had been vacated and the charges dismissed based on misconduct by Guevara, who usually worked with Detective Ernest Halvorsen.
A supplemental petition was filed months later containing a sworn statement from Torres, who said that Guevara had punched him in the abdomen, then told him which person [Williams] to pick in the initial photographic lineup.
“I told them I could not identify anyone,” Torres said in the statement. “They showed me a picture of someone I now know is Tyrece Williams and said he was the person who killed my friend, Peter. The detectives instructed me to pick out the same person in the photo array. I tried to resist but the detectives kept threatening me.
“At one point, one of the detectives punched me in the stomach,” Torres said. “It was the Latino detective who punched me. I definitely agreed to identify the same guy in the photo array.”
Torres said that when he went to view the live lineup, “the detectives told me that if I did not pick out the same person from the photo, they would throw me in jail. I was very scared, so I picked out the same person.”
Torres said that he spoke with Hawk after she had identified Williams in the live lineup. “I do not know her name but she told me she had no idea if the person she picked out was who did it because she didn’t really see it either.”
“I testified at trial to the same because I was young and scared,” Torres said. “I also feared that if I did not cooperate with the detectives, they would pin a case on me, like they were making me do [on Williams].”
The petition noted that Hawk and Biedron were deceased.
Griffin, Williams’s then girlfriend, also provided a sworn affidavit. She said she told the detectives that Williams did not leave their residence after returning from the hospital to see his wounded brother. “I told them specifically and repeatedly that Tyrece returned from the hospital in the morning and didn’t leave,” she said.
Griffin, who was pregnant and in her third trimester, said the detectives accused her of covering for Williams. “[T]hey did bring up my kids and I remember feeling like I could be in trouble or my kids could be taken away from me if I didn’t cooperate with them,” she said. “I was scared, pregnant and really wanted to get out of the station. They told me I couldn’t go home until I signed a statement. I eventually just signed a statement that they wanted me to sign so I could go home.”
Williams provided a sworn statement as well. He said that he never suggested to police that his older brother had killed Cruz to avenge the stabbing of their brother, Antonio. He said, “During the trial, I told my lawyer, Robert Grossman, I wanted to testify that I was innocent and was at home the whole day, just as I told the police have always said. My lawyer advised me that it would be a very bad idea to testify because if I did, the State would be able to introduce [Griffin’s] statement to contradict my alibi. I took my lawyer’s advice and did not testify.”
Although the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office had agreed to vacate dozens of Guevara-related cases when Kim Foxx was the elected State’s Attorney, by the time William’s case came up for a hearing, Eileen O’Neill Burke had been elected as State’s Attorney.
The prosecutor assigned to Williams’s case suggested that before Torres testified, he should be advised to seek legal advice because he could possibly face a perjury charge.
At a hearing on January 6, 2025, Torres’s attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, accused the prosecution of political retribution. Ultimately, Torres did testify and said that Williams was not the gunman.
“They were tussling,” Torres said, growing tearful as he testified. “When I got there, my friend looked at me… from the floor. He said help.”
According to Torres, Cruz, while being attacked, said: “Anthony, why are you doing this to me?”
“Is Anthony the same person as Tyrece Williams?” Williams’s attorney Joshua Tepfer asked.
“No,” Torres replied.
During cross-examination, the prosecutor, Linda Walls, asked Torres: “Your testimony today is that Detective Guevara beat you and threatened you in order to identify Tyrece Williams?”
“Correct,” Torres said.
On March 3, 2025, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Carol Howard granted Williams’s petition and vacated his convictions. In her decision, Judge Howard cited the lack of physical evidence against Williams, as well as Torres’s testimony that he was beaten and threatened by Guevara to identify Williams as the gunman who killed his friend.
On March 27, 2025, the prosecution dismissed the case.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 04-22-2025
Last Update Date: 04-22-2025
