Update: Hermilo Beltran’s nephew has established a GoFundMe to help support his wife and children.
There is new information to report tonight in the murder of a 47-year-old man behind Happy Camper restaurant in Wrigleyville on Sunday evening.
Police now suspect the victim was killed during a robbery attempt as he arrived for work. The getaway car, a silver Mercedes with a black roof, is believed to have been carjacked at gunpoint in the West Loop just a couple of hours before the murder.
And the robbers may have struck again in Avondale on Monday evening.
Here’s the latest:
Hermilo Beltran was found dead behind the back entrance to Happy Camper, 3458 North Clark, around 10:15 Sunday evening after police responded to calls of shots fired.
His wallet was reportedly missing, but police found his phone near his body. Beltran worked as an after-hours custodian at the restaurant, according to a media report.
A CPD surveillance camera captured footage of a silver Mercedes with a black roof leaving the alley and turning south on Clark Street around the time of the shooting.
Investigators suspect the Mercedes was taken at gunpoint from a woman after she left a West Loop restaurant around 7:55 p.m. Sunday. Two men approached her on the 200 block of North Carpenter and ordered her out of the vehicle while holding a gun to her head, a CPD spokesperson said. She got out, and they drove away with her silver Mercedes 300, which had Florida plates.
Just over an hour before this story was published, two men robbed a woman at gunpoint and escaped in a silver Mercedes sedan with Florida plates, according to initial information from the scene.
It happened on the 3500 block of West Henderson around 6:45 p.m. The suspects are two Black men in their 20s wearing dark hoodies. They are tall and slender, according to officers at the scene.
That aligns with the West Loop carjackers’ descriptions: two Black males in their teens or early 20s. One wore a black hoodie, and the other wore a blue hoodie.
In another armed robbery early Monday, three men with guns entered the Home Depot at 1232 West North Avenue as employees were preparing to open. The crew robbed the store of crowbars, bolt cutters, and other tools commonly used for break-ins, according to a CPD report.
A witness said the men escaped in a Mercedes sedan, but they said it was black.
