Jury Picked For Murder Trial of Cicero Man Charged With Gunning Down Teen Girl, Wounding Mom

A Cicero man charged with gunning down a teenage girl and wounding her mother faced the men and women who will sit on the jury for his murder trial.

Jury selection for Erick Maya, 24, began and ended Monday and his trial will start Tuesday.

The small, slight young man briefly introduced himself to prospective jurors, saying simply, “Good morning, Erick Maya.”

Nearly seven months ago, on the day before Valentine’s, Maya walked up with a handgun and opened fire on his 15-year-old former girlfriend and her mother as they sat in a car outside their Romeoville home. The former girlfriend, Briana Valle, took two bullets to her head and later died. Her mother, 33-year-old Alicia Guerrero, survived with a gunshot wound to her neck.

Just a week before the deadly shooting, Maya missed a Cook County court appearance for a probation status check. He was on probation for viciously beating another young lover with a beer bottle and metal pipe.

During the missed court appearance, Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Kristin Piper asked Judge Gregory Ginex to issue a warrant for Maya’s arrest but the judge refused, according to a court transcript. Ginex pointed out the “weather has been very bad” and scheduled another court date.

The girl Maya savagely attacked in October 2011 was also 15 years old. Maya put her in the hospital with bruises, a blood clot in her forearm and possible ligament damage, according to a Berwyn Police Department report.

The girl, whose name was blacked out of the report, told police she was “confronted by her ex-boyfriend Erick Maya,” who “began badmouthing her and blaming her for giving him a sexually transmitted disease.”

Maya was supposed to face deportation proceedings in 2011 but the Berwyn police released him from custody without notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a spokeswoman for the federal agency said.

Two months before the killing, Guerrero petitioned for—and obtained—an emergency protective order against Maya. In her petition, she said Maya threatened to rape both her and her teenage daughter.

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