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West Chicago beating death trial opens

The trial of a West Chicago father charged with murdering his infant son opened Tuesday with the child’s mother recounting the horrific moments she came home to find the little boy’s lifeless body.

Gustavo Torres-Medel, 27, is accused of fatally beating 3-month-old Gustavo Jr. in April 2009, while watching him alone in the basement apartment he shared with his former girlfriend, Perla Salgado, and their two sons.

On the opening day of Torres-Medel’s bench trial, Salgado testified that her youngest son was healthy and sleeping when she left for work on the morning of April 27, 2009.

But, hours later, she received a frightening phone call from Torres-Medel.

“He told me to come home because something tragic had happened,” Salgado said through an interpreter.

She said a noticeably nervous Torres-Medel wouldn’t tell her what happened. “He told me to come home,” she said.

Salgado, who works at a West Chicago grocery store, said she rushed home to find Torres-Medel in their bedroom with Gustavo Jr. She said the infant’s body was in a baby seat covered with a blanket.

Salgado said Torres-Medel repeatedly refused to tell her what happened, even after she started yelling at him.

“He told me he was going to be responsible for any charges that he would receive,” she said.

When Torres-Medel left the apartment, Salgado called her store manager, who came over along with several co-workers. The manager called 911 while others tried to administer CPR on the infant.

Torres-Medel returned shortly later. But before going home, Torres-Medel went to St. Charles to see Alfredo Escobar.

Escobar, who grew up in the same city in Mexico as Torres-Medel, said Torres-Medel asked him to notify his family that he was going to jail.

After repeatedly being asked what happened, Torres-Medel eventually told Escobar that his son was dead and that he had hit the boy. Escobar recalled Torres-Medel saying: “What I have done is not going to be forgiven.”

Investigators have said Torres-Medel admitted to them that he had a hangover that morning and grew “desperate” when Gustavo Jr. refused his bottle and kept crying. Torres-Medel confessed he repeatedly slapped the infant, squeezed his torso, shook him and threw the boy into his baby seat.

But in his opening statements, defense attorney Mark Lyon said there isn’t sufficient evidence to convict his client. He said that at least one statement Torres-Medel made in Spanish might have been mistranslated.

The bench trial before DuPage Circuit Judge Kathryn Creswell resumes Wednesday. Torres-Medel is being held without bond in the DuPage County jail.