Mother tells how she tried to protect Briana Valle before she was killed

JOLIET – Protecting her teenage daughter from Erick Maya took a toll on Alicia Guerrero.

On Friday, Guerrero testified about the steps she took to keep Briana Valle away from a man who was eight years older than her daughter. And, she described the buildup to a February shooting in their Romeoville driveway that left Valle, 15, dead and Guerrero, 34, injured.

Maya, 24, is being tried for murder and attempted murder. His trial started Monday with jury selection, with testimony starting Tuesday and lasting throughout the week.

After Valle ran away in August 2012, Guerrero logged into Facebook to discover her daughter had been exchanging messages with a man named "Carlos" who lived in Cicero. Guerrero testified she looked at the skyline in a video "Carlos" had on his page and drove around trying to match it to information she got from her daughter's cellphone company.

After police used the information to reunite Guerrero with her daughter, "all she could talk about was Carlos" on the ride home, Guerrero said.

Valle used friends and relatives' phones and online profiles to keep talking with "Carlos" and eventually revealed that his real name was Erick Maya, Guerrero testified.

Maya sent Valle, a student at Romeoville High School, cards, balloons and flowers for Valentine's Day in 2013 and would say her mother couldn't stop them being together, Guerrero said. Despite an order of protection, Guerrero caught Valle wearing "an engagement ring" in September 2013.

When the family moved to Emery Avenue in Romeoville the next month "to get away from him," Valle seemed to adjust and make new friends at school, Guerrero said. In December, Valle admitted she'd been talking with Maya again, but "was [now] scared," according to her mother's testimony.

Maya sent text messages threatening to come to the home with friends, trash the place and rape everybody, Guerrero said. The family obtained another order of protection.

"[Unlike the first time] Briana wanted me to do it," Guerrero said.

About 7 a.m. Feb. 13, Guerrero and Valle left to get breakfast on their way to school. With snow on the ground, Guerrero testified, she told her daughter, "Be careful not to fall. It's not sexy." Valle laughed.

Guerrero went to put on her seat belt. She heard a pop and became angry because she thought someone had banged on the car window too loudly.

"I looked at my daughter. Saw the [broken] glass. My daughter slouched. She wasn't moving," Guerrero said.

Guerrero grabbed her daughter to pull her down toward the center console and saw a man in a black hoodie standing outside "fiddling" with a revolver.

"He was fixing it or aiming it or playing with it. I said 'Please stop. Please don't do this.' ... He shot me," Guerrero testified.

With blood "gushing" from her neck and shoulder, Guerrero laid on the horn and screamed for help.

"I thought I was going to die and no one would find my daughter," she said.

As neighbors called 911 and went to get Guerrero's husband, she ran around to open the passenger door and hold her daughter.

"I said, 'I'm so sorry, baby. I'm here.' Her eyes blinked. She moaned. ... I screamed and my husband came out," Guerrero testified.

A few hours after the shooting, police found Maya hiding under a porch a few blocks away. He was wearing a black hoodie and allegedly identified himself as "Carlos" to the officers.

Valle died Feb. 17 in the hospital.

Guerrero appeared to fight back tears throughout her testimony while Maya stared down at the defense table for much of the time. At the end of Guerrero's questioning by assistant Will County State's Attorney Elizabeth Domagalla she showed the scar left by the bullet that remains in her body.

Guerrero's cross-examination by defense attorney George Lenard lasted less than a minute when she was only asked about a car she saw parked outside the morning of the shooting and couldn't recall any details.

The trial is scheduled to continue Monday.