Joliet man fights for new murder trial

YORKVILLE -- A Joliet man serving 40 years in prison for strangling his next-door neighbor and then torching her duplex to conceal the crime made a do-or-die bid to get his case sent back to court.

During a hearing for post-conviction relief Monday, Vincent Trevizo, 36, argued that he was denied the right to testify at his 2003 trial, that he was denied the right to a jury trial, that he was not informed of his right to have a judge removed for cause and that his attorneys were ineffective.

A Kendall County judge found Trevizo guilty of the murder of Melissa Plut, a 28-year-old Edward Hospital nurse.

Plut's body was found by firefighters responding to a blaze at her Kendall Ridge townhouse the Sunday of Labor Day weekend 2000. She was slumped just inside the door of her burning bedroom.

A plastic gasoline container had melted on her bed, and investigators determined Plut had been strangled and the house set on fire.

Plut had attended a wedding in Tinley Park the night before she was found dead. On the way home, she stopped off at a party thrown by Trevizo and his family, who were celebrating his son's first birthday.

Trevizo and a cousin were drinking in his driveway when Plut stopped by. She left the two men and returned to her home next door, where she was slain some time later.

The Trevizos and Plut lived in townhomes with a common wall. The arson conviction means he essentially set fire to the same structure in which his family was sleeping.

Trevizo, his mother, father, wife and an uncle testified at the hearing held in the Kendall County courthouse. Trevizo insisted his attorneys, Thomas Breen and Todd Pugh of Chicago, refused to let him testify and did not make it clear that he had the option of going before a jury instead of having a judge hear his case.

Trevizo's uncle, Raul Ramirez, supported this testimony, relating that, "Breen said no, because of what happened with (Rolando) Cruz," who was convicted and sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico only to be pardoned after serving more than 10 years in prison. Now, convicted murder Brian Dugan now has been convicted of Nicarico's death.

Ramirez said the attorneys were dead set against going before a jury for racial reasons as well.

"Because my nephew was Mexican, (Breen) said he probably wouldn't get a fair trial out here in Kendall County because there's not enough minorities," he said.

Trevizo's father, David Trevizo, said the attorneys told him he would be testifying at his son's trial but he was never called to the stand.

David Trevizo said he hoped to tell the court that the Joliet police had shown him a photograph of a car that he remembered seeing in the subdivision where he and his wife, Vincent Trevizo and his family, and Plut all lived.

David Trevizo said he spotted the car twice in the early morning hours in the week prior to Plut's murder. David Trevizo went on to say he learned the car was driven by Plut's boyfriend, Michael Hir.

Hir was initially investigated by police as a suspect in Plut's slaying. Court papers allege that Hir, whose brother was a Joliet police officer at the time of the murder, failed a lie detector test in which he was asked about his knowledge or involvement in Plut's death.

The results of the lie detector test were not admitted at Trevizo's trial.

David Trevizo said the Joliet police later denied showing him the photograph of the car.

Breen and Pugh were scheduled to testify at Trevizo's hearing Wednesday. Trevizo was transported to Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg but will be returned to Yorkville when the case resumes.