Sobbing Romeoville Dad Tells of Day His Daughter Was Gunned Down Outside His Home

Alejandro Valle went home to Romeoville and fell asleep after working all night loading trucks in Chicago.

Just a couple hours later he woke to a racket outside and went to check what was going on. He saw his wife with a bullet wound to her neck and his daughter clinging to life after being shot in the head.

His wife, Alicia Guerrero, was “crying and screaming about my daughter and there was blood all over,” Valle said on the first day of the murder trial for the man charged with killing his daughter, 15-year-old Briana Valle.

Alejandro Valle broke down crying on the witness stand as he recalled the day his wife and daughter were shot. Guerrero survived the gun attack but Briana died at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

Before Valle testified Tuesday, prosecutor Elizabeth Domagalla told of Briana meeting the man charged with killing her, 24-year-old Erick Maya of Cicero, on Facebook in 2012 and how the two proceeded to engage in a secret romance.

Guerrero tried to stop her underage daughter from carrying on with Maya, Domagalla said, taking away the teen’s phone and computer, and securing a protective court order, but Briana used a friend’s phone to contact her much older lover.

Also undiscouraged, Maya had Briana’s name tattooed on his arm, bought her Valentine’s Day balloons and a diamond ring, Domagalla said.

Briana’s family moved from Chicago to Romeoville to escape Maya, Domagalla said. After relocating, Guerrero obtained a second protective order against Maya, and her daughter eventually started coming around.

Briana pawned the diamond ring and began dating a boyfriend named Tony, Domagalla said, but this infuriated Maya who decided he needed to kill the teen and her mother.

Maya took a cab from Cicero to Romeoville on Feb. 11 and waited down the street from Briana’s house but she didn’t leave for school, Domagalla said. He took the same cab—with the same driver—two days later and walked up on Guerrero and Briana when they were leaving for Romeoville High.

Maya opened fire through the passenger-side window and ran off, Domagalla said. He was captured by the Romeoville police while hiding beneath a deck and under a pile of yard waste bags.

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 in Berwyn.

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 was also 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.

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