Plainfield Woman Convicted Of Murder Gets New Trial

PLAINFIELD, IL — A Plainfield woman accused of killing her ex-boyfriend in 2007 will get a new trial, a judge has ruled. The Herald-News reported over the weekend that 30-year-old Gabriela Escutia is back in the Will County Jail, awaiting an April court date. She had been facing 52 years in prison.

A jury found Escutia guilty in 2014 of first-degree murder. Prosecutors said she lured her ex-boyfriend, 18-year-old Javier Barrios of Romeoville, behind a Meijer shopping center where he was ambushed by her and her current boyfriend, Ricardo Gutierrez. Gutierrez had just gotten out of juvenile prison.

Gutierrez was found guilty in a separate trial and sentenced to 68 years in prison. He is also appealing the conviction.

Escutia admitted that she shot Barrios but denied that she meant to kill him, police said, but a judge ruled that confession was tainted by an illegal arrest. Police did not have a warrant or probable cause to take her into custody, the appellate court said, and failed to disclose her right to remain silent and to see an attorney prior to questioning — often referred to as Miranda rights.

At trial, Escutia said she lived in fear of Barrios, whom she had obtained an order of protection against. Barrios, she told the court, pushed her, slapped her, broke her car window, harassed her with phone calls and text messages and threatened her daughter.

"I asked the police for help on more than one occasion," Escutia said at sentencing, saying she feared she might only get the law's attention after she was dead.

Nonetheless, the trial made clear that Barrios' murder was brutal. According to prosecutors, Escutia shot him once in the side before her gun jammed. She then gave the gun to Gutierrez, prosecutors said, who cleared the jam and chased Barrios through an empty field before the wounded man collapsed. Gutierrez then shot Barrios twice more in the back of his head, prosecutors said, killing him.

Will COunty State's Attorney James Glasgow dismissed any notion that the killing was in self-defense. "Gabriela Escutia is not a battered woman," he said, calling her a "ruthless and manipulative killer" who orchestrated "gunning down a defenseless man in an act of cold-blooded betrayal."

After the shooting, according to police, the pair drove home and watched the horror film "Saw IV."

Image via Will County Sheriff's Office