COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Cook County judge on Wednesday sentenced Raymond Harris to life in prison without parole.
Harris was convicted last month of brutally murdering 73-year-old Virginia Perillo inside her Bridgeport garage in October 2011. Harris stole Perillo's wedding rings and used them to propose to his longtime girlfriend.
"We think it's a little demented, kind of creepy — crazy in a way — that he had to murder our mother just to get some rings and use those same rings to propose to his girlfriend," Perillo's oldest son, 40-year-old John Perillo, said after the trial concluded on Nov. 5. "I know the girlfriend was horrified" when she learned the truth.
Though John Perillo said the verdict brought "legal closure ... there's never really closure to the whole event. I mean, we're still feeling the effects of what happened to our mom. There will always remain a gap in our life, and her life was taken away way too soon."
Virginia Perillo, a longtime nurse and mother of three, was heading home from the grocery store when Harris attacked her on Oct. 22, 2011.
Harris "saw an opportunity," Assistant State's Attorney Amy Watroba said during closing statements last month. "He was there, and he was on her. He pummeled her face. He beat her. He pounded her .... until she was laying lifeless on the ground."
Harris stole Perillo's wedding rings, prosecutors said, and left her lying alone in her garage, braindead on the ground.
Later that evening, Harris showed up at a family party in a "flashy new jogging suit" and a new chain, Watroba said. He flashed wads of cash and told "anybody who would listen" he was going to propose using Perillo's rings.
Harris asked his brother the following morning to recommend a jeweler, prosecutors said. Harris would eventually have the engravings in Perillo's rings replaced with his own messages to his high-school sweetheart, who, according to prosecutors, was wearing the rings when police later questioned her.
Police arrested Harris after tests revealed his DNA was a positive match to DNA found on a watch left on the scene in the 3300 block of South Parnell Avenue.
At the time of the 2011 murder, Harris was on parole for attempted murder and aggravated arson. He was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to 30 years in state prison, according to the Chicago Tribune.
In that case, Harris broke into a woman's home, and beat and raped her "over a period of several hours," prosecutors said at the time. Harris tied the woman up, lit three separate fires and left, the Tribune reported in 2011. “The victim woke up with her legs on fire,” a prosecutor said. She suffered third-degree burns and was hospitalized for six weeks.
Cook County Judge Charles Burns on Wednesday sentenced Harris to life in prison without the option of parole.
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