Family hopes $10,000 warms cold case
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 6, 2008
On the night of his death, Rene Alonzo stopped by his grandmother's East Chicago home for no other reason than to say hello and leave her with his trademark smile.
"Take care of yourself," he told her.
Then Alonzo and his long-time girlfriend, Erica Badillo, ventured into the night to celebrate Mexican Independence Day at nearby E.J. Block Stadium.
Together for nine years, Alonzo called her "Chunks," and Badillo called him "Babe."
The two became an item in 1998, after Badillo's brother, and Alonzo 's best friend, died. With plans on getting married someday soon, and a two-carat ring to prove it, Alonzo and Badillo lived in Griffith with their two children, ages 8 and 2.
That Sunday night, after the festivities ended at Block Stadium, a friend of theirs asked for a ride to a nearby bar in the city's Harbor neighborhood.
Alonzo agreed. It ended up costing him his life.
Around 10:30 p.m., as Alonzo stood with a group of patrons outside the U.S. Sports Bar, at 3948 Alder St., a red van drove past. A person from inside the vehicle opened fire into the crowd, wounding Richard Perez, 24, in the legs.
Alonzo wasn't as fortunate. He was shot in the head and chest.
Erica Badillo heard the shots from inside the bar, ran to the parking lot, and saw Alonzo on the ground, his face bleeding. She rushed to him and cradled him.
" Rene died in my arms," she recalled. "All I could do was just hold him tight. I didn't want to let him go."
Bystanders circled around the couple until police arrived and pulled her away from his lifeless body. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
"They would not let me hold him any more," Badillo said. "All I could do is cry and just look at him lying there without me."
The family prankster
Rene Anthony Alonzo was a church altar boy, a Little League ballplayer, the family prankster, and an unsuspecting fashion plate. He liked brand-name clothes, jewelry, and shoes, especially if it involved his beloved New York Yankees.
Usually the quiet observer in the corner of a party, he also enjoyed giving nicknames to loved ones, just as his father called him "Pooh" when Alonzo was a boy.
After high school, Alonzo began working with his father through the International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, Local 17, in Chicago. He continued until his death with his older brother, Ricky Alonzo , of Crown Point.
The Alonzos eventually moved out of the Harbor section of the city, into safer communities like Schererville, Crown Point and Griffith. But Rene routinely returned to his old stomping grounds, often to visit his grandmother.
"Family was very important to Rene ," explained Rich Alonzo of Schererville, Rene 's father. "He seemed to keep us all together."
After moving to Griffith, Rene became a member of St. Mary's Church, watching his children's baptisms and first communions. He didn't attend regular church services, but "only when he had to," Badillo said.
Instead, he worshiped his 8-year-old daughter, a petite princess, and his 2-year-old son, who is just beginning to ask about his missing father.
Through the years he helped get his friends good jobs through the union as laborers, even if other friends who turned to the Harbor's streets were jealous of his lifestyle, Badillo said.
"He loved to dress nice, keeping up with fashion," she said. "Whatever he wanted, he had to have it."
It's doubtful whether that jealousy or his lifestyle had anything to do with his death, his family says. And they simply can't grasp why he would be the target of a drive-by shooting.
"Never in my lifetime did I think I would bury my brother due to gunshots," his sister said.
"Wrong place, wrong time," one of his cousins told me.
Cold case, icy injustice
Last winter, Badillo and the couple's two young kids built a snowman to look like Alonzo , complete with a Yankees cap and jokester's smile.
Deep down, Badillo dreamed that Rene would return to life as a snowman, like in the movie "Jack Frost." In that film, which premiered the same year Alonzo and Badillo became a couple, Michael Keaton portrayed a father who dies in a car accident and returns one year later as a snowman.
But Badillo's snowman eventually melted, along with her childlike hopes, and Alonzo 's cold case only turned more frigid.
The family has since made repeated efforts to get information from East Chicago police, but has received nothing in return. I also tried contacting the department for this column and have yet to receive a reply.
The family also has contacted the Lake County Sheriff's Police, the Indiana State Police, the FBI, and even East Chicago Mayor George Pabey for insights into the investigation. They're still waiting for an update of any kind.
"They're probably assuming that Rene was a gangbanger so they don't care about his death," one family member told me.
"But Rene did not have a police record, and he was not an enemy to anyone on these streets," said his younger sister, Stacey.
Police initially told the family that it may have been a case of mistaken identity, noting Rene 's long-time fashion statement of wearing a New York Yankees cap.
The family also was told that two suspects were initially taken into custody for the killing, but they had to be released after 48 hours due to lack of charges against them.
Still, the family wonders why no witnesses were detained or interviewed at the scene, and they wonder how many other warm-blooded homicides in their hometown have turned into cold-as-a-morgue police investigations.
More importantly, they are still fearful for their own safety.
"The killer -- or killers -- are still out there," said Rene 's mother, Patricia Herrera, when I recently met with the extended family.
To put a flame under Rene Alonzo 's cold case, the family is posting a $10,000 reward to whomever comes forward with information leading to an arrest and conviction.
"We want justice," his father told me.
"We want closure," his mother added.
"Money talks," one relative whispered to me as I walked away.
Caption: Stacey Alonzo visits the graveside of her older brother, Rene Alonzo , near a bench the family had made in his honor at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Schererville.(PHOTO) (STEPHANIE DOWELL/POST-TRIBUNE) Alonzo (PHOTO)
