LAURA HOBBS and KRYSTAL TOBIAS - 8 and 9 yo - (2005)/ Charged: Jorge Torrez - Waukeegan IL

2005 article

Waukeegan IL ---- An ex-convict has admitted punching, kicking and stabbing to death his
8-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old best friend on Mother's Day,
prosecutors in suburban Chicago said.Jerry Hobbs, 34, was
charged Wednesday with two counts of first-degree murder and denied
bond, Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller said.Hobbs
could face the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors are
calling the killings "a slaughter." Laura Hobbs was stabbed 20 times and
Krystal Tobias was stabbed 11 times, they said. The second-grade
classmates were found dead Monday, a day after they were last seen riding their bikes.
Their killings have shaken the town of Zion, about 40 miles north of Chicago.Hobbs has told
authorities he thought his daughter was "having too much latitude as to
what she can and can't do," said Jeffrey Pavletic, chief deputy of the
Lake County state's attorney's criminal division. Hobbs said he
went to Beulah Park between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. Sunday, "looking for
Laura to bring her home," Pavletic said. Hobbs "said that he saw
her with Krystal, said that he then confronted Laura and said, 'Come
home, you're coming home with me,'" Pavletic said."She said she
didn't want to. An argument developed. He had then said in his own words
that he had punched her twice at least in the face. She went down to
the ground. Krystal then came to Laura's rescue. The defendant then
stated that he punched her to the ground as well. "He then stated
that during this period of time, Krystal, who was coming to the aid of
Laura, had pulled out what he described as a potato knife," Pavletic
continued. "He said that once that potato knife was pulled out,
he said that is when he struck Krystal. He then took the knife from her
and then repeatedly began to stab both girls in the bodies." Hobbs
was slashed in the neck, abdomen and both eyes. Tobias was stabbed in
the neck and abdomen, Pavletic said."To get an idea of the type
of thrust that was being used, the injuries to Laura's neck actually not
only went through tissue but struck in the spinal cord as well."

Texas prosecutor: Chased people with chainsaw

Her father was the one who led police to the girls'
bodies, saying he had been searching for them. But as police asked Hobbs
more questions, his answers seemed "atypical of a father whose daughter
had just been murdered," Waller said.Hobbs returned to
Illinois a month ago after his release from prison in Texas, where he
served nearly two years for violating probation. In 2002 he
pleaded guilty to assault against Laura Hobbs' mother Sheila Hollabaugh
the year before, said Rick Mahler, an assistant district attorney in
Wichita Falls, Texas."He started chasing people around with a
chainsaw that was running," he said. "Somebody hit him with a shovel,
knocked him down. Those people held him until the police arrived."He
also had served time in county jails on a variety of misdemeanor
charges, ranging from assault to possession of marijuana and resisting
arrest, Mahler said.Hobbs' next court appearance, a preliminary
hearing, is scheduled for June 9.

The murder case of alleged child killer Jerry Hobbs came before a Lake County judge
Tuesday only to get another court date for the end of the month.
Circuit Court Judge Fred Foreman waived the presence of Hobbs.
Keith Grant, chief of the felony trial division of the Public
Defender's Office, appeared on his behalf.Both Grant and
Assistant State's Attorney James Pavletic agreed to continue the murder
case until June 29.Hobbs is accused of murdering his 8-year old daughter Laura,
and her 9-year-old friend, Krystal Tobias, near their home in Zion on
Mother's Day in 2005. His trial is scheduled for Oct. 6.

A Lake County man is out of jail after spending five years incarcerated
on charges he murdered his daughter and her friend.
Jerry Hobbs was released from custody Wednesday after prosecutors
dropped charges against him. Eight-year-old
Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias were found stabbed to death
back in 2005. DNA evidence found on one of the girls was linked to
another man who is now in custody.
Hobbs was quietly ushered out of the courthouse and into a waiting car.
He is said to be on his way to his mother's home in Texas. The local
prosecutor admitted Wednesday authorities got it wrong when they
charged the father but he would not offer Hobbs an apology. "For
five years Jerry Hobbs sat wrongfully changed with a crime he did not
commit and the only evidence was the statement extracted from him by the
Major Crimes Task Force," said Keith Grant, Hobbs' defense attorney. The
signed and videotaped confession to the murder of his 8-year-old
daughter, Laura, and her friend, Krystal Tobias, was the crux of
prosecutors' case against Hobbs. Hobbs said he confessed only after two
days of nearly non-stop interrogation. "Coercion takes many
forms and there was more than any single aspect of why he ultimately
signed the statement," said Grant. "The first thing he said was not 'get
me out of here,' but 'make sure we do justice for Laura." The
government's case began to unravel two years ago when the Lake County
Public Defender's Office found DNA on Laura Hobbs. That DNA didn't match
her dad, Jerry Hobbs. Despite evidence indicating someone else
had left DNA on the 8-year-old girl in the hours or days leading up to
the murder, prosecutors remained focused on Hobbs. They say it's because
there were no injuries to suggest she had been raped. "The
girls were fully clothed. There was no evidence that they had been
sexually assaulted," said Michael Waller, Lake County State's Attorney.
"I don't believe law enforcement did anything wrong in this case." That
statement has angered Hobbs' family. His mother questioned, "How do you
hold a man five years, four years in solitary confinement and not
apologize. And for him to say he did nothing wrong? An apology to him
would have gone a long way." The Lake County State's Attorney
said Wednesday he now no longer believes Jerry Hobbs played a role in
his daughter's death. According to Krystal Tobias' relatives, the DNA
evidence links the crime to Jorge Torrez. He's a former Marine now
charged in Virginia with a series of rapes. Torrez was close friends
with Krystal Tobias' older brother, Alberto. "I was 15 years old
at the time. I didn't really see anything suspicious. If he tried to
make a move on them." said Alberto Segura, the victim's brother.
Krystal's relatives say they no longer know what or whom to believe. "Right
now I'm just feeling like it's already been five years. I really don't
care who did it or did not. God will handle it," said Segura. "Honestly,
I have no more faith in the criminal justice system. I really don't,"
said Sam Alterson, victim's cousin. "It makes me sick to my stomach. I
know my family is hurting." The author of a book on false confessions says
he believes in Hobbs' innocence. "When I met Jerry Hobbs I could tell he was in pain over the loss of
this child. I knew in a minute that he wouldn't have killed this child,"
said Rob Warden, NU Center on Wrongful Convictions. Prosecutors
wouldn't say when they planned to move forward on possible charges
against the former Tobias family friend who is now the prime suspect in
the case. They're in no hurry because he's already in prison for rape. Jerry
Hobbs is said to be considering filing a lawsuit against Lake County
and the Village of Zion for the conduct of investigators in this case.
Hobbs' attorney, though, says his client is less concerned about his own
circumstance over the last five years than ensuring the real killer is charged and convicted.

December 03, 2010
the Chicago Daily Herald

HOBBS CALLS FOR CHARGES AGAINST TRUE KILLER

By Ted Cox

A day after filing a federal civil rights suit against Lake County law enforcement officials, Jerry Hobbs and his attorneys Thursday called for an overhaul in the Major Crimes Task Force and for charges to be filed against the man now linked to the 2005 murder of his daughter Laura and her friend Krystal Tobias.

"Every law-abiding citizen in the state of Illinois ought to be asking why a brutal murderer and rapist of children isn’t being charged," said Locke Bowman, legal director of the Roderick MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University School of Law, who filed the suit on behalf of Hobbs.

Hobbs was jailed, charged and held for five years after giving what the suit says was a "coerced" confession in the days after he discovered the bodies of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias in a Zion park.

Hobbs, now living in Texas, was released in August after DNA evidence connected former Zion resident Jorge Torrez to the scene. Torrez is jailed in Virginia, where he was convicted in October of two separate sex offenses, but has not been charged in the Zion rape and stabbings.

Asked at a news conference at Northwestern’s downtown Chicago campus if some law enforcement officials should lose their jobs over the case, Hobbs said, "Yeah, definitely."

"Some crimes were committed here," Bowman added.

"I’m upset with the way they’re running the system in Lake County, yes I am," Hobbs said. "If they’d done their job right, and done the DNA testing and everything else first, they probably wouldn’t have even knocked on my door."

"They could never make up what I lost, what they took from me," Hobbs added. "My kids aren’t kids anymore. They’re half-grown. It’s five years I missed of their lives."

Hobbs said he soon intends to reunite with his two teenage boys and adult stepdaughter, and that his "whole family" has been supportive throughout.

The suit accused nine defendants with having "coerced" Hobbs’ confession through "extreme psychological abuse as well as physical force" over 20 hours. Bowman said Hobbs was in a fragile state during the interrogation after discovering the bodies.

"I wasn’t even myself," Hobbs said. "I was just trying to get out. I was a broke man," he added. "I asked for a lawyer twice. I tried to leave and they wouldn’t let me. So I just gave them what they wanted."

Hobbs withdrew the confession within days but was held without bond. He never formally went to trial.

Accused in Hobbs’ lawsuit are Waukegan police officers Dominic Cappelluti, Charles Schletz and William Valko; deputies Timothy Jonites and Robert Dever of the Lake County sheriff’s police; Vernon Hills officer Andrew Jones; Buffalo Grove officer Thomas Derken; and Zion officer Kevin Harris, as well as an officer whose name and department Hobbs’ lawyers say they do not know.

Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, who was not party to the investigation or in office at that time, was named in his formal capacity, along with Lake County and the municipalities of Waukegan, Zion, Vernon Hills and Buffalo Grove.

The Lake County Major Crimes Task Force is made up of investigators and evidence technicians throughout the county who are paid by their home departments while serving with the task force. Mundelein Police Chief Ray Rose, head of the task force, issued a statement saying that given the lawsuit it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the case. Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Waller has likewise declined to comment.

Without specifying the amount, Bowman said only they were seeking "a lot of money" in the suit, and Hobbs added there was no way to make up for being "wrongly accused."

John Stainthorp, of the People’s Law Office, who is co-counsel on the case, said the suit is also intended to compel movement against Torrez. "They should assign independent people who are not tied to this completely botched investigation," he said.

Stainthorp blamed the failure to identify Torrez as a suspect in the first place for his later crimes in Virginia, and both Bowman and Hobbs said Lake County officials had not apologized for his arrest and long-term incarceration.

Bowman said prosecutors and investigators knew as early as 2006 that DNA evidence did not tie Hobbs to the crime, a detail that first came out in court two years later. Hobbs emphasized that even after a nationwide criminal DNA search turned up Torrez as a match this summer, they still held him for two weeks until releasing him from Lake County jail Aug. 4.

"There’s a series of miscarriages of justice," Bowman said.

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/news/article_full.cfm?eventid=5119

Lawsuit says Illinois police forced dad's confession
By KAREN HAWKINS – 
The Associated Press


Jerry Hobbs recounts the five years he spent in the Lake County Jail after being wrongfully accused in the 2005 deaths of his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and 9-year-old, Krystal Tobias, at a news conference with his attorneys Thursday. (AP photo)

CHICAGO – A man who spent five years in jail for the Mother’s Day murders of his daughter and her friend before DNA evidence cleared him filed a lawsuit Thursday against several Illinois law enforcement officers, claiming they used physical and psychological torture to coerce a confession.

Jerry Hobbs, 40, alleges the officers tortured him for 20 hours. They repeatedly punched him, forced him to look at crime scene photos, and turned down his request to talk with a lawyer, the suit says.

Hobbs said officers immediately focused in on him as a suspect.

“Once they got me, they wouldn’t let me go,” he told reporters Thursday. “They just started with, ‘you did it.’ ”

Hobbs spent five years in the Lake County Jail after his arrest in the deaths of his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and 9-year-old Krystal Tobias, who were killed in May 2005 in Zion.

He was freed from custody in August after DNA from the crime scene matched another man who once lived in Zion but was in custody in Virginia after being charged in two attacks on women. That man has not yet been charged in the girls’ deaths.

Hobbs’ suit names individual police officers from Waukegan, Vernon Hills, Zion and Buffalo Grove, as well as the municipalities themselves, Lake County, an officer with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office and the sheriff.

Officials with the village of Buffalo Grove, and the police departments of Buffalo Grove, Waukegan, Vernon Hills and Zion declined to comment Thursday. Messages left for other municipal officials weren’t immediately returned.

Police began interrogating Hobbs shortly after he discovered the girls’ brutalized bodies in a park. Both girls had been stabbed multiple times, and Laura Hobbs had been sexually assaulted.

Hobbs has a lengthy history of run-ins with law enforcement for offenses ranging from aggravated assault to marijuana possession in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he currently lives. Hobbs had been out of a Texas prison for less than a month when his daughter was killed.

“I’m no angel,” Hobbs told reporters. “I had my roaring 20s just like anybody else.”

One of Hobbs’ attorneys, Locke Bowman, said his client is seeking “a lot of money.”

“[Officers] extracted a confession from Jerry Hobbs and turned him into a heinous villain,” Bowman said. “Jerry Hobbs was confronted when he was at his most vulnerable. He had suffered the worst nightmare that a father could imagine.”

Hobbs said he can’t ever get back the five years he missed of his surviving children’s lives.

“(Police) couldn’t ever make up what I lost, what they took from me,” he said.

http://www.daily-chronicle.com/2010/12/02/lawsuit-says-illinois-police-forced-dads-confession/afiybil/

Article updated: 1/15/2011 2:11 PM
Falsely accused fathers urge mandatory DNA testing, death penalty repeal



By Barbara Vitello | Legal Affairs Writer

The most terrible of accusations united Jerry Hobbs and Kevin Fox, and the most fundamental scientific evidence exonerated them.
Hobbs, formerly of Zion, was charged with the 2005 murder of his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and her 9-year-old friend Krystal Tobias. Fox, of Wilmington, was charged with the 2004 death of his 3-year-old daughter, Riley.

DNA testing eventually cleared both men. Hobbs was released last year after spending five years in a Lake County jail while Fox was released from his Will County cell after eight months in custody.
On Friday, the men met for the first time at the Oak Brook office of their attorney, Kathleen Zellner. United in a common cause, they expressed their support for the repeal of Illinois' death penalty and to advocate for mandatory DNA testing they say would ensure that no one else endures a false accusation and incarceration.
A proposed law to ban the death sentence in Illinois was just passed by the state legislature and awaits action by Gov. Pat Quinn's. He has not said whether he will sign it into law.
Both Hobbs and Fox believe they may have been subjected to the death penalty had their cases gone to trial, Zellner said. Their combined experience of being incarcerated, charged with such a heinous crime and having to “live with that stigma every day,” shaped their shared opposition to the death penalty, Zellner said.
“They think a natural life sentence without parole is a more difficult sentence than death,” she said.
Hobbs and Fox believe political considerations may determine prosecutors' decision to seek the death penalty, Zellner said, adding that there is “a randomness to it.” For example, a capital-eligible defendant may face the death penalty in one jurisdiction and not another, Zellner said.
“I think the stronger point they made is about DNA testing,” said Zellner, adding that state money would be better spent on reliable scientific testing than in housing death row inmates. Both men believe a suspect's DNA should be tested by private labs and not the Illinois State Police Crime Lab, which, besides having a backlog, did not possess the technology to test evidence in the Fox case, and which missed DNA evidence in Hobbs' case, Zellner said.
She claims a private lab recovered the DNA evidence that led to the arrest of convicted sex offender Scott Eby for the death of Riley Fox. Eby pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to life in prison. Authorities say DNA linked former Zion resident Jorge Torrez to the scene where the bodies of Laura Hobbs and Tobias were found. Torrez is jailed in Virginia, where he was convicted of two sex offenses, but has not been charged in the Zion case.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110115/news/701159810/

A former Zion resident whose DNA has been linked to 8-year-old Laura Hobbs was sentenced Friday in Virginia to five life sentences plus 168 years for abducting and raping a woman earlier this year.

According to Virginia news outlets, Arlington County Circuit Court Judge Benjamin Kendrick had little sympathy for former Marine Lance Cpl. Jorge Torrez at the convicted rapist’s sentencing.

Calling Torrez, 21, a “coward,” the judge imposed the jury’s recommendation. Torrez will also pay a $190,000 fine.

Arlington County Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Theo Stamos said Torrez is a “predator” who made his victims endure horrifying ordeals.

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1N1-1340CF860EA84DD8.html

Ex-Marine linked to 2009 death of Navy sailor
By: Emily Babay 03/20/11 8:05 PM
Examiner Staff Writer | Follow her: @emilybabay



Amanda J. Snell was a 20-year-old Navy intelligence specialist and a youth minister at an Alexandria church when she was found dead in her Henderson Hall barracks room in Arlington in July 2009.

More than a year and half later, prosecutors are preparing to charge a former Marine corporal with a violent past in her death, according to Snell's mother and a law enforcement source.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia says it plans to charge Jorge A. Torrez in the case, Snell's mother, Cynthia, told The Washington Examiner.

A prosecutor with the attorney's office told her Torrez was a Marine, Cynthia Snell said, and only one Jorge A. Torrez exists in military service records, according to the office of Manpower and Reserve Affairs. A law enforcement source confirmed that federal authorities are pursuing Torrez in the Snell case.

Torrez, who also goes by George, was convicted in Arlington County in October of abducting and raping one woman and robbing another in separate attacks. Those assaults took place while he was stationed at Henderson Hall.

He is also linked through DNA evidence to the May 2005 slayings of two young girls in Zion, Ill., where he used to live. One girl's father spent five years in jail before charges were dropped when the DNA match to Torrez came to light through a national database last summer. Torrez has not been charged in Illinois.

Peter Carr, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office, said he couldn't discuss whether charges are pending in a case. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service is continuing to follow leads, spokesman Ed Buice said. He declined to comment further.

The Navy and Fort Myers-Henderson Hall base referred questions to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

Jason Rucker, Torrez's attorney in the Arlington case, declined to comment.

"There's a sense of relief," said Snell, who lives in Las Vegas. "But a parent is not supposed to outlive their child."

The circumstances of Amanda's Snell's death have remained a mystery. Military officials won't release details, and Cynthia Snell said she has never received a death certificate.

When Amanda Snell was found dead July 13, 2009, after having missed a work shift, no one suspected she had killed herself, said Rachael Ping, who was Snell's supervisor at the time.

Ping said she didn't know if Torrez and Snell knew each other, but they lived about eight doors apart. In the male-dominated barracks, "everyone would have known she was there," Ping said.

Torrez was sentenced in December to five life terms in prison for raping and abducting an Arlington woman, after having restrained the woman and her friend in a house. He was also convicted of trying to lead a woman into his car and robbing her of her purse.

Snell joined the Navy in August 2007. She had a "strong sense of serving her country," her mother said.

Ping said Snell was living at Henderson Hall in order to be close to her job at the Pentagon.

"We thought it would be safer," she said.

ebabay@washingtonexaminer.com

http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime-punishment/2011/03/ex-marine-linked-2009-death-navy-sailor

Arlington assault suspect linked to Illinois murders
By: Emily Babay
Examiner Staff Writer
July 9, 2010



An ex-Marine accused of rape in Arlington has been linked through his DNA to the murder of two Chicago-area girls, a crime for which one of the girls' father has spent the past five years in jail.
Jorge "George" Torrez's DNA reportedly matched evidence found on the body of 8-year-old Laura Hobbs, who, with 9-year-old playmate Krystal Tobias, was found beaten and stabbed to death in a Zion, Ill., park in May 2005.
Denman Rucker, Torrez's attorney, told The Washington Examiner that Arlington prosecutors notified him about the DNA link. Rucker said he couldn't confirm the DNA match because he hadn't seen the tests.
Chief Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Theophani Stamos said, "We have been asked to refer all calls to the Lake County, Ill., state's attorneys office." She declined further comment on the case.
Jerry Hobbs, Laura's father, was charged with murder shortly after the slayings, based on a confession he later said was coerced. He has been in custody awaiting trial for the past five years, even though semen found on Laura didn't match his DNA.
Arlington police charge that Torrez robbed and tried to abduct one woman and raped another in separate incidents in February. He is in custody at the Arlington County Detention Facility, in a solitary unit where high-profile inmates are housed, said Susie Doyel of the Arlington County Sheriff's Office.
Torrez served in the Marines from September 2006 to April 2010, when he was discharged for misconduct, Marine Cpl. Karenly Guerra said. Torrez was charged with one of the Arlington assaults in February and with the other in June.
He was a corporal stationed at Henderson Hall in Arlington at the time of the alleged assaults there.
When Torrez lived in Zion, he was friends with Krystal Tobias' older brother, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Prosecutor Jeff Pavletic told the Tribune that investigators matched the evidence from Laura's body to another suspect, but did not name Torrez, who has not been charged in the murders.
Torrez's sister, Sara Torrez, told Chicago media outlets that authorities informed her and her parents that Jorge Torrez was linked to the murder of the two girls and officers had searched their home in Zion.
Jerry Hobbs' guilt should have long been in doubt, said Steven Drizin, a Northwestern University law professor and the director of the school's Center on Wrongful Convictions.
DNA is the "gold standard" of forensic evidence and that evidence "eviscerated the reliability of Hobbs' confession," Drizin said.
Most prosecutors, Drizin said, will not proceed in a rape case when DNA evidence does not match their suspect unless there is a credible reason why someone else's DNA is on the victim.
Arlington police spokeswoman Crystal Nosal said she couldn't comment on the reported DNA link because it was another department's investigation. Lake County prosecutors, who are investigating the Illinois case, did not publicly respond to requests for comment.
ebabay@washingtonexaminer.com

http://dev.www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Arlington-assault-suspect-linked-to-Illinois-murders-98073524.html

Incarcerated ex-Marine charged in 2009 slaying of Navy petty officer



Published: May 26
A former U.S. Marine already serving a prison sentence was charged Thursday in the 2009 slaying of a female Navy petty officer at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington County, federal prosecutors said.
Jorge Avila Torrez, 22, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 20-year-old Amanda Jean Snell, prosecutors said in a news release. Torrez was an active-duty Marine Corps corporal stationed at the base when the killing occurred, and Snell was a Navy petty officer there, the prosecutors said.
Few other details about the slaying were immediately available. The news release said that Snell was found dead in her barracks room on July 13 and that Torrez had killed her two days earlier. The release did not say how Snell was killed or what the motive for her slaying might have been.
“Today, we are charging Jorge Torrez with murdering a young Navy Petty Officer in her barracks,” U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Neil H. MacBride said in the release. “This indictment is the result of extreme dedication by NCIS and the Arlington County Police Department to follow every lead possible to bring the person responsible for Amanda’s murder to justice.”
Torrez is already incarcerated at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison, serving five life sentences plus 168 years stemming from the February 2010 abduction and rape of a University of Maryland graduate student and another attempted kidnapping weeks earlier, federal and local authorities said.
He attacked the 23-year-old student and her friend, bound them with electrical cords inside the friend’s home, then raped the 23-year-old, authorities have said. He eventually choked her and left her for dead in a remote area of Prince William County, authorities have said. He was convicted and sentenced late last year.
Torrez is also a suspect in the 2005 killing of two young girls in his hometown of Zion, Ill., law enforcement sources have said. DNA evidence linked him to those slayings and forced prosecutors to drop charges against another man.
Torrez was discharged from the military in April 2010, a Marine spokesman has said. His sister said last year that he joined the Marines immediately after high school and spent time in Okinawa, Japan, before moving to Northern Virginia.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/incarcerated-ex-marine-charged-in-2009-slaying-of-navy-petty-officer/2011/05/26/AGOi3LCH_story.html

By Dan Hinkel
8:47 a.m. CDT, August 19, 2011

The killings of Krystal Tobias, 9, and her 8-year-old best friend, Laura Hobbs,
continue to trouble the people of Zion, and the Lake County justice system has yet to put anyone on trial in the case.

Visit people around leafy Beulah Park, and you’ll find parents who can
remember where they were – and what their children were doing – on the
day more than six years ago when the girls were found dead in the park,
riddled with stab wounds. Certain neighbors of the park can recite
details of the ill-fated case against Laura’s father, Jerry Hobbs.

Jerry Hobbs has filed a civil lawsuit against police and prosecutors,
alleging his confession was coerced through violence and psychological
manipulation. He also claims prosecutors maliciously moved forward with
the case, even after DNA evidence appeared to point away from him as the suspect.
Lawyers for the defendants are fighting his claims.

Whose DNA was at the crime scene?

The Tribune revealed in July 2010 that DNA evidence from the scene had
allegedly been linked to a former Marine from Zion, Jorge Torrez, who
was already jailed in Virginia.

And while he was reportedly connected by forensic evidence to the most notorious crime in Lake
County’s recent history, almost nothing about his life has been publicized over the last year.

Who is Jorge Torrez?

Today’s profile seeks to tell more of that untold and important story.
I combed through court records – with crucial help from Katherine Skiba
in our Washington D.C. bureau – tracked down military buddies from
Virginia and Okinawa, Japan, and found childhood friends from Zion.

Torrez himself added to the portrait with a phone call from a Virginia jail,
where he is serving five life sentences plus 168 years for rape and
abduction. Neither he nor anyone else has been charged in the year since
Hobbs was released after five years in jail awaiting trial.

Justice in Lake County

The Hobbs-Tobias case has serious implications for the justice system in Lake County.
And Tribune reporters have documented other Lake County cases in which the
claims of authorities appear contradicted by scientific evidence.
But the pull of the Hobbs-Tobias case goes back to two little girls
horrifically murdered in a place that should have been safe for kids.
I’ve written extensively about the killings, but I had never visited
Beulah Park until recently. It is vast and canopied, with a bike trail
that cuts from one side to the other. It bears the hallmarks of child
inhabitation – boards nailed to downed trees as steps and a narrow mud
bike path leading to a harrowingly steep jump.

It’s a beautiful place. And it’s impossible to forget what happened there.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/tribnation/chi-pursuing-leads-in-a-murder-investigation-20110819,0,6049795.story

By Dan Hinkel, Chicago Tribune reporter | November 18, 2012

Successful lawsuits against prosecutors are rare, but an exonerated former murder suspect has cleared an early obstacle in his attempt to hold Lake County prosecutors legally liable for his ordeal. Jerry Hobbs spent five years in jail awaiting trial after he confessed to killing his 8-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old friend in Zion in 2005. Though DNA indicated his innocence in 2007, prosecutors continued to press charges until the evidence led authorities to another man in 2010 and Hobbs was freed.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/keyword/jerry-hobbs/featured/3

Former Inmate Settles $6 Million Suit

By Smith, Johnson & Antholt, LLC of Smith, Johnson & Antholt, LLC
posted in Civil Rights on Friday, September 20, 2013.

After DNA cleared Jerry Hobbs in 2010 for the gruesome murders of his eight-year-old daughter and her friend that occurred in 2005, his attorneys have now reached a $6 million settlement with several Lake County authorities.

In 2005, Laura Hobbs, 8, and her friend Krystal Tobias, 9, were found brutally murdered in a park in Zion, Illinois. Jerry Hobbs, Laura's father, was arrested shortly after the murders, eventually falsely confessing to stabbing the girls after undergoing more than twenty-four hours of grueling interrogation by the police.

In 2007, semen extracted from the body of Hobbs' daughter matched that of a man other than Hobbs. However, even with this undeniably exculpatory evidence at hand, Hobbs wasn't released for another two-plus years. According to court records, prosecutors dismissed the relevance of this evidence on the allegation that Hobbs' daughter could have innocently come into contact with the semen in the park because this was a place where couples would go to have sex.

Finally in 2010, Hobbs was released from prison after Jorge Torrez, a former Zion resident who had been arrested for multiple sexual assaults in the D.C. area, matched the DNA.

http://www.lawsja.com/blog/2013/09/former-inmate-settles-6-million-suit.shtml

'I know someone set me up'

August 19, 2011
By Dan Hinkel, Tribune reporter

Excerpt:

Within months, Jorge Torrez would be linked by DNA to the slayings of two young girls found side by side in a Zion park in 2005, according to court records. He also has been charged with killing a Navy petty officer in her barracks in 2009 and was convicted of abducting and raping the woman found in the snow.

Torrez, 23, has remained enigmatic. Authorities have said almost nothing about him, and little has been revealed about his life — until now.

In his first interview from prison, Torrez insisted he is innocent of all of the crimes, despite crucial evidence tying him to more than one of them.

Asked why one of the slain girls from Zion, 8-year-old Laura Hobbs, allegedly had his semen in her body, Torrez said he has a defense against any potential murder charges.

"I'm not denying that (the DNA) is mine," he said. "Once I tell them how my DNA got there, I'm walking."

Torrez said he has an alibi and three witnesses to prove his innocence in the double murder. He said he will eventually explain why his semen was found in the girl.

He couldn't kill a person, Torrez said. "All my friends and family know I don't do (expletive) like this," he said.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-08-19/news/ct-met-torrez-20110819_1_alberto-segura-laura-hobbs-zion-park

Mom on death penalty for Torrez: 'I only wish I could do it myself'

Tribune reporters
5:26 p.m. CDT, April 24, 2014

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – After hearing days of testimony implicating Jorge Torrez as the killer of two young girls in Illinois in 2005, jurors decided today that he should be put to death in a separate case – the murder of a sailor four years later.

The decision drew mixed reaction from the mother and grandmother of one of the girls killed in Zion, Ill.

Laura Hobbs’ mother, Sheila Hollabaugh, said she supports the death penalty for Torrez. “I only wish I could do it myself,” she said.

Hollabaugh, 38, who now lives in Pennsylvania, said she still thinks about her daughter’s death frequently. “I don’t think that’ll ever go away,” she said.

Hobbs’ grandmother, JoAnn Hobbs of Wichita Falls, Tex., said she thinks death is “the easy way out” for Torrez.

“I’d rather he stayed alive and suffered, but that’s just my opinion,” she said. “(Execution) is too quick, as far as I’m concerned. “

The jury’s decision was announced this afternoon after more than four hours of deliberation.

Jurors chose the death penalty over life in prison for Torrez, 25, in the murder of sailor Amanda Jean Snell in the Washington, D.C., area. He was convicted of her murder April 8, but has not yet been tried in the Illinois killings.

Making a closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney James Trump summarized Torrez's alleged attacks on women and girls, condemning him as a man who didn't care about six female victims -- three of whom were slain – but regarded them as "prizes" or "trophies."

Trump said that "this little man -- this coward -- can't admit he brutally murdered two little girls" for sexual gratification.

Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, were stabbed repeatedly in Zion's Beulah Park on Mother's Day in 2005. The crime is notorious both for its brutality and for the fact that Lake County authorities first prosecuted Laura’s father, Jerry Hobbs, who confessed after a lengthy interrogation and then spent five years in jail awaiting trial for the killings before he was freed.

Testimony in the federal case showed semen recovered from Laura Hobbs' body and clothing tied Torrez to her fatal stabbing.

"This is no room for doubt," Trump said, "Jorge Torrez deserves to die."

In the federal case, Torrez instructed his three defense lawyers to say nothing on his behalf during his sentencing for the strangulation murder of Snell near the Pentagon in July 2009 when Torrez was a Marine.

Torrez's rampage in the Washington, D.C., area and the testimony about the Zion slayings cast an unflattering light on Lake County's justice system, which in recent years developed a reputation for securing false confessions, jailing seemingly innocent men and then failing to relent when their cases were contradicted by forensic evidence. Jerry Hobbs is one of four men who spent a total of 60 years behind bars before being cleared by DNA. Three of them had confessed after aggressive interrogations.

It had been known since 2007 that the DNA in the Zion killings didn't match Hobbs but Lake County prosecutors refused to free him for years, arguing the semen might be explained by the girls playing in a place where couples went for sex. Hobbs sat in jail until 2010, when the DNA allegedly linked Torrez to the crime after his arrest in Virginia in a string of attacks on women.

Between 2007 and 2010, authorities say Torrez killed Snell and committed the other Virginia assaults, which included a near-fatal sexual attack. He is currently serving five life sentences plus 168 years for those crimes.

In Virginia federal court this morning, jurors heard a closing argument from prosecutors before being excused to deliberate. The argument, lasting about 25 minutes, began when the prosecutor arranged for a courtroom monitor to display six color photographs of Torrez’s alleged victims.

Trump mentioned their names repeatedly in describing a purported crime spree that spanned two states and lasted almost five years, speaking of abductions, rape, sodomy, strangulation and stabbings.

The prosecutor showed a graphic image to the jurors: photos of the bodies of Tobias and Laura Hobbs, their limbs askew on a grassy patch of the thickly wooded parkland. Torrez said he knifed the girls in the neck to stop them from screaming, according to testimony from the jailhouse informant.

Torrez, who was neatly dressed in a suit jacket, shirt, tie and slacks in earlier court appearances, chose today to wear forest green jailhouse clothing over a long-sleeved T-shirt. The judge questioned him about the choice, but indicated that he felt the jury had heard enough about his criminal history to understand that he was imprisoned.

Torrez, looking sullen, entered the courtroom just after 8 a.m. Chicago time. His only remarks were, "Yes, your honor," when Judge Liam O'Grady asked a few questions of him.

The jurors’ decision was unanimous. O'Grady told jurors today that he is obligated by law to abide by their decision in sentencing Torrez. The judge set a sentencing date of May 30.

The federal government has not executed anyone since 2003, and a long appeals process likely would follow. As of September 2013, there were 59 inmates on federal death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. In the last 25 years, the federal government has executed three people, one of whom was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Torrez is being represented by three taxpayer-paid lawyers.

One of his lawyers, Robert Lee Jenkins, Jr., said in an interview before the verdict he expected a quick decision.

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-jorge-torrez-trial-20140424,0,968224.story