As 63-year-old George Levin finished up a Sunday dinner with his mother and sister, two men left a nearby apartment armed with duct tape, prosecutors said, and entered the Norwood Park home after reportedly arranging a meetup with Levin online.
But in the span of about half an hour, prosecutors alleged, the men brutally attacked Levin, robbed him and left him tied up in his basement, where he remained until his sister found him dead hours later.
Calling the slaying shocking, a Cook County judge on Saturday ordered Geiderwuin Bello Morales, 21, and Jefferson Ubilla-Delgado, 29, detained while awaiting trial. The pair, who lived together in an apartment, are charged with murder and robbery.
“I can’t overlook the horrifying nature of the allegations here. To call this a crime of violence is quite the understatement,” Judge William Fahy said.
During the hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, prosecutors made their case to the judge to keep the men behind bars, laying out gruesome details of the Jan. 26 attack in the 7600 block of West Talcott Avenue home.
A defense attorney, though, argued that the killing may have been an “unfortunate accident.” It is unclear how much of the encounter was consensual, the defense argued.
Fahy was unpersuaded.
“This is much more than mere tragic, and it’s certainly much more than an accident based on what’s been presented here today,” he said.
Ubilla-Delgado was wearing a Department of Homeland GPS monitoring device on his ankle at the time of the killing, prosecutors said in court. A police report listed his place of birth as Ecuador.
According to police and prosecutors, Levin, his sister and his mother ate dinner together that night around 7 p.m. before Levin went downstairs about an hour later.
Meanwhile, prosecutors said, Ubilla-Delgado and Bello Morales were spotted on surveillance video around 8:05 p.m. leaving an apartment building, then arriving at Levin’s home a few minutes later in a white Lexus.
Around 8:30 p.m., Levin’s sister heard loud noises coming from the basement and walked downstairs to investigate, prosecutors said. She saw Bello Morales leaving her brother’s bedroom, and asked him where her brother was, they alleged. He assured her that her brother was OK and that he would have Levin call her later.
About 10 minutes later, surveillance footage captured the men walking away from Levin’s house, getting in their car and leaving. From 8:35 p.m. to 10:45 p.m., Levin’s sister attempted to call her brother with no response, prosecutors said. She also texted her brother, receiving messages “brushing her off,” prosecutors said. Those messages were sent after the men had already left the home.
After sending him multiple text messages, she went downstairs around 10:45 p.m, prosecutors said. She found him with a sock stuffed in his mouth, partially undressed, with duct tape around his hands and face and a black power cord wrapped around his ankles.
Levin’s sister peeled away the duct tape and performed CPR while waiting for emergency responders to arrive, prosecutors said. He sustained a hemorrhage to the neck, a subdural hemorrhage to the head and rib fractures, according to the state. He also may have been suffocated.
His keys, cell phone and wallet were all missing, according to a police report.
Police tracked Bello Morales and Ubilla-Delgado using Levin’s phone and the ankle monitor that Ubilla-Delgado wore. The men used Levin’s phone to start online banking accounts, and made four orders on Amazon worth more than $4,000, prosecutors said.
The suspects were also captured on video going into a vape store on Lawrence Avenue, which also showed Ubilla-Delgado carrying Levin’s phone. Bello Morales then went to a gas station on Montrose Avenue, unsuccessfully trying to withdraw money from an ATM using Levin’s credit cards, prosecutors said.
Bello Morales was arrested Jan. 12 and accused of beckoning a 13-year-old girl over to a car on the Far Northwest Side, court records show. He was charged with simple assault and charging documents state he “gestured towards (the girl) to come over to his vehicle.”
Caroline Kubzansky contributed reporting.
