McDonald's shooting: Police see similarity to 1992 murder
Anne Warfield
Police see pattern in deaths 9 years apart
By Jeff Coen
Tribune staff reporter
June 15, 2001
As investigators in DuPage County search for Michael Alfonso, who is
accused of gunning down a woman in broad daylight in a McDonald's
parking lot last week, investigators in another county watch ruefully.
Nine years ago, Alfonso was the prime suspect in the shooting death of
a 23-year-old Wheaton hairstylist whose remains were found in a ravine
in a state park in Kendall County.
"I always believed that [Alfonso] was responsible for Sumanear Yang's
death," said Illinois State Police Capt. Ken Kaupas, an investigations
commander who led the 1992 probe. "And I always felt that he was the
type of person who would involve himself in something like this
again."
But personal conviction does not always equate to a conviction in
court. The evidence was too circumstantial, investigators and
prosecutors said.
"To date, we don't have enough evidence to obtain a conviction,"
Kendall County State's Atty. Tim McCann said of the case that remains
open. "And that's the standard. It's not whether we have enough
evidence to obtain an indictment; it's: Do we have enough evidence to
convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and get a conviction?"
Alfonso, whose name at the time was Michael Johnson, was considered by
authorities an obvious suspect. He had a criminal past, and he had a
relationship with Yang that was ending as she made plans to reconcile
with her estranged husband.
Alfonso was never charged. But Kaupas' gut feeling about Alfonso
proved prophetic when Alfonso stabbed an ex-girlfriend in 1994.
Now, the 31-year-old Wheaton man is accused of killing Genoveva Franco
Velasquez, a Glendale Heights woman with whom he had a relationship.He
remained at large Thursday.
Parallels between the two killings frustrate investigators.
Yang and her husband had dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant in Wheaton
the September night she disappeared, police said. They spoke of
reconciling, Yang's husband told investigators, and then left in
separate cars.
The next sign of her was the discovery a week later of her burned
Toyota on Chicago's South Side. About a month after that, hikers
discovered her badly decomposed remains.
Witnesses told police that Alfonso had been in Yang's home the night
before she vanished and that Alfonso and Yang had a heated quarrel.
Investigators also knew Alfonso had been convicted for raping and
beating a woman he had dated in 1989. He had been released from state
prison four months before Yang's disappearance.
During the weeks Yang was missing, Alfonso refused to cooperate with
police. Then, the discovery of Yang's body yielded a physical clue:
Bullet fragments retrieved from her remains chemically matched
ammunition found in a police search of Alfonso's residence,
investigators said.
Dallas Ingemunson, state's attorney in Kendall County at the time,
said he didn't believe there was enough evidence for a conviction
because the bullet used to kill Yang was not distinguishable from many
others of that manufacturer's.
"We kept hoping other things would turn up," Ingemunson said. "You
evaluate any chance you have for a conviction, and if it's no chance,
it's silly to go ahead because you lose the opportunity if you get
good evidence later on."
Police said they covered all the bases. Divers searched the Fox River
for the handgun used to kill Yang and even sorted through waste in
portable toilets at the park looking for clues.
By November 1994, Alfonso was at the center of another violent case.
He was charged with two counts of aggravated battery after stabbing a
23-year-old ex-girlfriend in an Elgin motel. Police said he forced the
woman and her son into her car and drove her to the motel. He was
convicted and served more than a year in prison.
Four months after he was released, a new state's attorney took over in
Kendall County, and the Yang case was reviewed. Her body was exhumed
last year as investigators sought DNA evidence that could break the
case.
Police see a pattern in last week's shooting of Velasquez. They say
Alfonso had become acquainted with her while she was having marital
difficulties. They say the two had a quarrel the night before she was
killed, shot as she arrived for work as an assistant manager of the
McDonald's on Naperville Road in Wheaton on June 6.
Kaupas joined DuPage County police in calling for help from anyone
with knowledge of either the Yang or Velasquez case or of Alfonso's
whereabouts.
"Hopefully, now his family or a friend or someone who knows where he
is will come forward," Kaupas said. "They should do the right thing
and not protect him.
http://chicagotribune.com/news/local/article/0,1051,SAV-0106150305,00.html
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Anne Warfield
indigoace at goodsol period com
http://www.goodsol.com/cats/