COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — It's been nearly 20 years since Gabriella Torres, 22, was found raped and murdered inside a Chevy Lumina on the city's West Side.
Following what the FBI called a "worldwide manhunt," accused killer Fidel Urbina, now 41, was extradited to Chicago from Mexico this week after spending nearly two decades on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.
He now faces charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated kidnapping, unlawful restraint, criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual assault in Torres' murder and the 1998 rape of a Chicago waitress.
Cook County Judge James Brown denied Urbina bail Thursday.
According to prosecutors, Torres first met Urbina, then 23, on Oct. 20, 1998, when she took her 1985 Oldsmobile sedan to a garage in the 2300 block of West 50th Street for repairs.
The following day, police found Torres' body in the trunk of a burning 1990 Chevy Lumina in an alley on the same block, Assistant State's Attorney Craig Taczy said during a bond hearing Thursday. Torres' car was parked nearby.
Torres had been severely burned and was bound by a spark-plug wire and duct tape, prosecutors said. A second wire was wrapped around her neck, while a bloody shirt covered her head. A metal pipe lay nearby, according to Taczy.
An autopsy later revealed Torres died of strangulation and blunt-force trauma, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. Her vagina and bladder had been punctured, prosecutors said, and there was a hemorrhage to the connective tissue surrounding the woman's vagina and rectum.
Authorities were later able to match a semen sample collected during Torres' autopsy to Urbina. Taczy said Urbina's fingerprints were found inside Torres' car.
When police first arrived on the scene Oct. 21, 1998, they saw two witnesses running from the burning Chevy, prosecutors said. Both admitted to helping Urbina push the Chevy into an alley alongside Urbina before setting it ablaze with lighter fluid. The witnesses were later convicted of arson, Taczy said.
A third witness told police Urbina asked him to help him move a dead a body at his garage because "he had killed a lady," according to Taczy. It is unclear whether that witness was later charged.
At the time of the October 1998 murder, Urbina was free on bond for a rape that occurred March 1, 1998.
In that case, Urbina is accused of raping a waitress he'd offered to drive home in an auto-repair garage in the 2100 block of West 18th Street.
Prosecutors said Urbina choked the woman and bent her finger before raping her at knifepoint inside a vehicle in the garage. He then forced the woman into another car, brought her to his apartment and raped her, anally raped her and forced her to perform oral sex before he fell asleep, Taczy said.
The woman was able to escape, and Urbina was later charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault. He failed to appear in court Oct. 27, 1998. The FBI believes Urbina fled the country sometime that fall.
Urbina was placed on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list in June 2012, and he was taken into custody in Chihuahua, Mexico, on Sept. 22, 2016. The government agreed to extradite Urbina to Chicago in December. He arrived at Chicago O'Hare International Airport about 7:45 p.m. Tuesday.
Assistant Public Defender Kathryn Lisco declined to offer mitigation for Urbina in court Thursday.
