Chapter 2 - THE BROTHER WHO GAVE HIM AN ALIBI
Three years earlier, Mateo had lived with Daniela and Elena in a modest brick house in Aurora, Illinois.
Nothing about their marriage had been perfect.
That mattered at his trial.
Daniela handled bookkeeping for Vargas Construction, the small remodeling company Mateo and Gabriel had inherited from their father.
Mateo handled job sites.
Gabriel handled clients.
Money had been tight that year.
Two major renovations stalled.
A supplier threatened collection.
Mateo and Daniela argued about whether he should leave the family company and take a union maintenance job with the city.
The prosecution later played three angry voicemail messages Mateo had left Daniela the afternoon she died.
One ended with:
“We can’t keep living like this.”
At 10:26 that night, Mateo arrived home and found Daniela unconscious on the kitchen floor.
She had suffered a fatal head injury.
A heavy iron fireplace tool lay nearby.
Mateo touched it while trying to understand what had happened.
He touched Daniela.
He called 911.
His fingerprints were everywhere because it was his house.
His blood was found near the kitchen door because he had split his knuckle at work earlier that day.
The evidence was circumstantial.
Then Gabriel testified.
He told the jury Mateo had been increasingly angry.
He said Daniela had privately complained that she was afraid Mateo might “lose control.”
Most damaging of all, Gabriel described a phone call from Mateo several hours before the murder.
Mateo had supposedly said:
“I swear, Gabe, I could kill her.”
Mateo denied saying it.
The jury believed Gabriel.
Their mother, Rosa Vargas, sat behind Gabriel during the entire trial.
She never contradicted him.
Rosa also gave Gabriel an alibi.
She testified that Gabriel had eaten dinner at her house in Montgomery that evening and stayed until almost eleven.
Elena was only five.
A child specialist interviewed her twice.
She remembered her parents arguing earlier.
She remembered hiding beneath a blanket.
She remembered someone opening the back door.
But whenever asked who it was, she shut down.
The prosecution argued the child had been traumatized by seeing her father attack her mother.
The defense argued she had never actually identified Mateo.
Neither side produced another suspect.
Mateo was convicted of second-degree murder.
Twenty-two years.
Afterward, Rosa became Elena’s legal guardian.
Gabriel became the uncle who attended school events, bought birthday presents, and told everyone Elena needed “a normal childhood.”
Mateo hated him for testifying.
But until the burgundy locket appeared, hate was all he had.
Now a photograph existed showing Gabriel with Daniela.
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And Elena had whispered something far worse.
I saw him that night.
