Baby's Twice-Convicted Killer To Stand Trial Again: Report

JOLIET, IL — A Joliet man who has previously been convicted twice of murdering an 8-month-old child back in October 2008 learned Monday that his conviction has been overturned as the result of the actions of Will County Circuit Judge Sarah Jones, The Joliet Herald-News reported. Santos Loza, who turns 39 this month, was previously convicted of murder at a 2013 jury trial and again in 2015.

However, on Monday, the Illinois court of appeals determined that Judge Jones erred when she allowed the recorded police interrogations of Loza to be shown to the jury at his 2015 trial, the newspaper article indicated. Loza had been serving a 34-year prison term after being found guilty of killing Sandra Sitko's 8-month-old child, Kevion Bender.

In 2015, Joliet Patch published an article with the headline, "Baby Killer Gets 34 Years In Prison."

That article indicated Loza killed Kevion in 2008, about three months after he met Sitko on a website. Sitko, a West Chicago resident, had been traveling to Loza's Joliet home to have sex with him about four nights a week, according to court testimony. When she went to Loza's home, Sitko always brought along both Kevion and her older son. Kevion would sleep on a floor and the older boy on a couch while she shared Loza's bed, the Patch article reported.

The night Kevion was killed, Sitko left the boy alone with Loza for hours while she worked at a McDonald's. During Kevion's autopsy, a forensic pathologist found evidence of 35 separate injuries, including a fractured skull and broken ribs.

For more than a year after her baby was killed, Sitko continued to have sex with Loza, she testified, in an attempt to unravel the mystery of Kevion's death.