Man Mistaken For Fugitive in Romeoville Murder Tells of Flight From Cops

A Romeoville man captured in the wake of a brutal killing up the street from his house was transported from prison Wednesday to testify at another man’s murder trial.

While on the witness stand, Dylan Somma, 20, refused to point to the man on trial for murdering a 15-year-old Romeoville girl.

“I ain’t here to testify on anybody,” Somma, who is doing a four-year prison sentence at Sheridan Correctional Center, told prosecutor Jim Long when asked to point out accused killer Erick Maya.

“I’m here to defend myself,” Somma said.

Maya, 24, allegedly murdered his underage ex-girlfriend, Briana Valle, on the morning of Feb. 13. He took a cab from his home in Cicero to Briana’s house and waited for the Romeoville High freshman to leave for school, a prosecutor said. When Briana and her mother, Alicia Guerrero, got in the family’s car, Maya allegedly walked up and opened fire through the passenger-side window.

Briana was hit twice in the head and died soon after. Guerrero took a bullet to the neck and survived.

Somma said he was asleep in his bedroom on the morning of the shooting. He testified Wednesday that his mother woke him and said, “Dylan, there’s cops everywhere. You got to go.”

The massive police presence was a problem, Somma said, because he had warrants out for his arrest charging him with burglary, residential burglary, and aggravated battery. To make matter worse, Somma said, the house where he was staying was owned by the father of his stepfather, and if Somma was arrested there, his family would be forced out of their home.

Figuring the cops were on the verge of “kicking the door down (and) taking me into custody for my warrants,” Somma quickly dressed and slipped out the back with plans to head to a friends place a couple blocks away, he said.

Somma cut through backyards, slicing his right hand open on a fence along the way. He spotted a cop running at him, he said, so he “pulled up (his) pants” and dashed off.”

Somma made it to his friend’s house and knocked on the door, he said, but no one answered. He went around the back to peer in a window but saw a police officer calling out, “That’s him!”

Somm again made a break for it, he said, but ran right into the path of two cops with their guns drawn. They ordered him to get on the ground.

“I didn’t want to get shot so I got on the floor,” said Somma, who is almost exactly the same height and weight as the 5-foot-5, 145-pound Maya.

Somma said he never knew Briana, Guerrero or Maya, who was also captured that morning. The cops caught him hiding under a deck, covered in yard waste bags.

Maya allegedly shot Briana and her mother after the teen ended their love affair. While trying to get her daughter away from Maya, Guerrero obtained two protective orders against him and moved her family from Chicago down to Romeoville.

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