Jury weighs Aurora slaying case

August 08, 2007|By Clifford Ward, Special to the Tribune

A Kane County jury is expected to render a verdict Wednesday in a 2000 Aurora gang slaying, the first case brought by a cold case task force to reach a jury.

A jury deliberated five hours Tuesday before adjourning in the murder trial of Jose R. Salinas, 28, of Aurora.

Salinas of the 900 block of South Kendall Street was arrested March 12 at his job in Montgomery and charged with first-degree murder in the gang-related slaying of Luis R. Donatlan, 22, who was shot about 2 p.m. May 8, 2000, on Aurora's west side.

Salinas is accused of firing nine shots from a vehicle, one of which struck Donatlan in the lower back.

"Luis Donatlan spent the last few hours of his life fighting the inevitable. He never had a chance because on that day he was the victim of a coldblooded, gangland-style execution," Kane County Assistant State's Atty. Andy Horvat told the jury in closing arguments.

Defense attorney Kathleen Colton pointed to a lack of physical evidence in the trial and attacked the credibility of Aaron Cohen, who told police he was driving the car from which Salinas allegedly fired the gun.

"The state did so many back flips I thought I was at a gymnastics match," Colton said.

The weeklong trial is before Judge Patricia Golden.

If convicted, Salinas faces between 20 and 60 years in prison.

Donatlan's death was one of several unsolved homicides that a joint cold case task force had been investigating since the Aurora Police Department and FBI formed it in 2004.

In June, the task force announced 31 men were charged in Aurora-area murders as part of a three-year investigation. The investigation, dubbed Operation First-Degree Burn, included 22 homicides committed through 2003 and alleged to be the work of the Latin Kings, the largest street gang in Aurora.