A man who fled to Mexico in 2005 after his involvement in a deadly fight in Harvard pleaded guilty Wednesday to second-degree murder in the 20-year-old killing.

Roberto Valdez-Calixto, 46, was sentenced to 19 years in prison, of which he is required to serve half, followed by two years mandatory supervised release, McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney William Bruce said during the hearing.

Valdez-Calixto was originally charged with Class X felony murder. In exchange for the guilty plea, the charge was amended to a Class 1 felony.

Bruce told the court that, in the late hours of Feb. 19, 2005, the man who would be stabbed to death later that night, Cecilio Hernandez Ramirez, 25, had been drinking and playing basketball with five others at his home, then left in a vehicle at around 11 p.m. to buy beer.

When they returned about 10 minutes later Valdez-Calixto and three of his friends followed them. An argument ensued and one of Valdez-Calixto’s friends struck Hernandez Ramirez with a fist and another struck him with a belt, Bruce said. Then all who were there began to fight.

Shortly afterward, Valdez-Calixto and his three friends fled the area, then returned and approached Hernandez Ramirez and his group again.

Witnesses reported seeing Hernandez Ramirez being held from behind while others were “making movements toward Cecilio with their arms as if they were striking him,” Bruce said. Valdez-Calixto then fled on foot and his three friends, who also were co-defendants in the case, drove off in a vehicle.

The three friends were soon arrested at the scene, where police said they found two long sticks and two knives. Hernandez Ramirez was found unconscious and bleeding.

He was declared dead hours later at a Harvard hospital. An autopsy showed he suffered “multiple stab wounds,” Bruce said.

Valdez-Calixto fled to Mexico where he lived with his family before his arrest on Sept. 12, 2023. He was extradited to the McHenry County jail March 11, 2024, where he has remained since.

After the sentence was handed down Wednesday, Liliana Chavez, a McHenry County victim witness coordinator, read from three impact statements from Hernandez Ramirez’s family members, who were present in the courtroom. Chavez translated the statements from Spanish to English.

One was written by Hernandez Ramirez’s son, who began by saying, “I never met my dad.” He said when he was a child, he would often ask why he didn’t have a father like all his friends.

“I didn’t understand,” he said. His mother has told him that his father had dreams for him that he never got to see.

“I will never meet my dad and that makes me sad. It hurts my heart. I miss you, Dad, and I love you,” he wrote.

The son’s mother also wrote a statement saying that when Hernandez Ramirez died, he was about to become a father for the first time. From the day he died, she “was never the same,” she said.

“How do you explain to a little boy” why he does not have a father, she added, saying Hernandez Ramirez “was a great man and would have been a great father.”

Hernandez Ramirez’s mother also wrote a statement and said the loss of her son affected her whole life and her family’s. She said she suffers depression and anxiety and has “trouble sleeping at night thinking about how they hurt him.”

Judge Justin Hanson was given three additional impact statements that he read privately. He said he was asked questions such as what would he do if he were in their situation and would he question the fairness of the judicial system. “I don’t have good answers for any of those questions.”

Other charges were dismissed in exchange for the guilty plea, including mob action and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, according court records.

After Valdez-Calixto fled, he soon was named No. 1 on McHenry County’s most wanted list. Although local authorities had been told in 2006 that he was in Mexico, it is unclear why he wasn’t captured and taken into custody for nearly 20 years.

When Valdez-Calixto was in custody of the county jail, Harvard Police Chief Tyson Bauman, referencing old police reports, said police “knew where he was almost right away because” they heard from the victim’s family.

Bauman said police received a call from a prosecutor in Mexico City in June 2006 who said a family member of the victim reported that Valdez-Calixto was living in Texcapilla, about three hours outside of Mexico City.

Harvard police then contacted the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office and requested the services of federal officials but never heard back, Bauman said.

In a 2011 Chicago Tribune article, two reporters wrote about traveling to Mexico and finding Valdez-Calixto on a family farm on a hillside outside of Texcapilla.

According to the article, Valdez-Calixto had been living there “for several years with his wife and three children. He worked as a laborer and auto mechanic, said his wife, Araceli Ayala. She added that authorities had come looking for him right after he fled, but “to protect him, I didn’t give them any information,” the Tribune reported.

After reaching out to U.S. federal agencies again, Bauman said Harvard police heard nothing until members of the state’s attorney’s office came to the police department in early 2022 and asked to review the case. The process started again, and Harvard police also got a visit from the FBI, Bauman said.

McHenry County Assistant State’s Attorney Kyle Bruett confirmed in an email in 2023 that the office “began this recent extradition process request in 2022.”

In 2023, Harvard police received information that Valdez-Calixto had been arrested in Mexico. They next heard when he was in the county jail March 11, 2024.

Bruett said he doesn’t know why Valdez-Calixto wasn’t extradited sooner if authorities had known where he was since 2006.

In the same deadly fight for which Valdez-Calixto pleaded guilty, two of his relatives, Marciano Valdez and Jose Santos Valdez-Calixto, each were convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison, court records show. A fourth man, Juan Rivera-Garcia, was convicted of mob action and sentenced to three years in prison, court records show.