Gregorio Cardona and five other men — his brother, Robert Cardona, Lowell Higgins-Bey, Michael McCastle, Fernando Gomez , and Harry Rodriguez — were among more than 50 men and women who were wrongly convicted based on misconduct by Chicago police detective Reynaldo Guevara and his partner, Ernest Halvorsen, and in some cases other detectives. The misconduct included coercing false confessions through violence and coercing false identifications from witnesses. A list of these exonerees is here.
At about 5 p.m. on June 23, 1987, the body of 47-year-old Raymond Carvis was discovered on the second floor of his home in the 2600 block of North Sawyer Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. His hands were tied behind his back and socks were tied around his neck. He had been stabbed and cut nearly 40 times.
Carvis was discovered by Francisco Martinez, who had keys to the home because he routinely cooked, shopped and gardened for Carvis, a mortgage broker who formerly worked with Cook County treasurer Edward Rosewell.
Carvis was covered by bedsheets. His wallet was on the floor. The house had been ransacked and numerous electronic items were missing. In the kitchen, police found two knives, one a serrated steak knife, the other a cake knife with the tip broken off. During an autopsy, the tip was recovered from the back of Carvis’s neck.
Police found a microwave covered by a plastic bag by the back door. The porch had been removed as part of a remodeling project and so there were no stairs.
A 1984 Ford Thunderbird belonging to Carvis’s roommate, Ronald Griggs, was missing as well.
Neighbors reported seeing Carvis sitting on his front porch between 2 and 2:30 p.m.
Hours later, shortly after midnight, Griggs’s car was set on fire on a dead-end street near 4600 West Cortland Street, several blocks away. An employee of a steel company who was standing in an open dock nearby reported seeing two men fleeing from the scene.
The murder appeared similar to a February 1987 stabbing murder of Frank Masic, the host of a radio program, “Voice of Croatia.” Masic, like Carvis, was gay. Masic’s residence, about 4 miles from Carvis’s home, had been ransacked and Masic had been stabbed multiple times. In addition, Masic’s car had been recovered in the 2500 block of North Sawyer, a block from Carvis’s home.
The initial investigation of Carvis’s murder focused on 18-year-old Rudy Ramirez, who had done work for Carvis, formerly lived nearby, and whose girlfriend lived less than a mile from Carvis’s home.
By the time of Carvis’s murder, Ramirez had been questioned, but not charged, in the Masic murder investigation. Ramirez had denied involvement. Police reports at the time said that Ramirez was known to “accompany homosexual males.”
Mike Vazquez, a close acquaintance of Carvis, told detectives that Carvis had confided to him prior to the murder that he had a date with a Hispanic man on the following Tuesday. Vazquez said Carvis said the man had previously done work on Carvis’s home. According to Vasquez, Carvis had a habit of picking up men in the neighborhood for Tuesday “dates,” because Griggs, Carvis’s roommate, worked late on Tuesdays.
On June 25, 1987, two days after Carvis was murdered, police interviewed Ramirez. He denied any physical or sexual contact with Carvis, though he knew Carvis was gay. Ramirez admitted that he knew Carvis and had done work in Carvis’s home. He claimed he last saw Carvis two weeks before the murder.
Ramirez said he had been with his girlfriend at her home about a mile from Carvis’s home from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The girlfriend and her father confirmed that information.
Later, Ramirez agreed to take a polygraph examination. The examiner concluded Ramirez “did in fact have knowledge of the incident,” and could “not be eliminated as a suspect.”
Detectives went to the steel company worker who had seen the men running from Griggs’s burning Thunderbird. The worker was shown a photographic lineup, and he selected a photograph of Ramirez as one of the two men.
Ramirez then was interviewed a second time on June 26, 1987. He now claimed that, around 10:30 a.m. on June 23, 1987, he came across two white males, who he knew as “Tony” and “Fatman,” while he was walking on Milwaukee Avenue from Kimball Avenue. Ramirez said that Tony told him that they were going to kill “Ray,” as Ray had been “tricking on all the guys on the block for drugs.” As they talked, a two-door, brown Oldsmobile Cutlass pulled up, driven by another white male, and both Tony and Fatman left in the car.
Ramirez said he continued walking until he passed Sawyer Avenue, where he saw the same vehicle, with only the driver inside, pull into the alley behind Carvis’s home. After a few minutes, Ramirez said he saw Tony and Fatman leave the rear of Carvis’s home carrying a VCR and television, and get into the car, which drove off.
Ramirez said he continued walking to his girlfriend’s home, stopping along the way to shop, and arrived at noon, where he remained until 11:00 p.m.
When police re-interviewed his girlfriend, she now said that Ramirez left the house about 2 p.m., saying he was going to Richmond Street and McLean Avenue, about four blocks away, and suggested she come over. She said she rode her bicycle there and saw Ramirez talking to several other men and did not stop.
Armed with this information, detectives questioned Ramirez again. He said he had talked to someone named “Peter,” then came back to his girlfriend’s house where he paid off a $20 debt to someone he only knew as “Miguel,” and stayed there until 11 p.m.
At this point, detectives Ernest Halvorsen and Edwin Dickinson took over the investigation.
On June 26, 1987, Halvorsen and Dickinson visited Vazquez, the man who had previously said that Carvis had a date scheduled for the day that the murder occurred. They showed him a photographic lineup of individuals they said were suspects in the case. The photos were of Ramirez as well as 19-year-old Harry Rodriguez, Jose Negron, Isabelo Nieves, Angel Gonzalez, and Edwin Marrero, all members of the Spanish Cobras street gang.
Vazquez identified Ramirez as the man that Carvis was supposed to go on a date with on the date of his death. Vazquez said he recognized Rodriguez as someone he saw “hanging in the neighborhood.”
Francisco Martinez, who discovered Carvis’s body, was shown the same photographic lineup and only identified Gonzales as someone he had “seen in the neighborhood.” Martinez further told police that on June 19, four days before the murder, Carvis had confided that he had gone “to bed the night before” with a Hispanic who had previously done work for Carvis, and that Carvis planned to see the man again on June 22 or June 23.
Despite this evidence, on June 30, 1987, the investigation changed course. Detectives Halvorsen and Dickinson reported they had been contacted by Lt. Edward Kijowski, with the 14 th District Tactical Unit, who reported that street informants said that 17-year-old Robert Cardona was selling jewelry on the street after Carvis’s murder.
According to Kijowski, the informants believed that Carvis had been targeted by gang members because he had been a police informant who was involved in “Operation Mongoose,” a police investigation targeting drug dealers who were members of the Spanish Cobras street gang.
Robert Cardona and his 16-year-old brother, Gregorio Cardona, were members of the Cobras.
On July 9, the detectives reported receiving an anonymous tip that 18-year-old Lowell Higgins-Bey, a member of the Black Gangster Disciples street gang, had been heard talking about the murder. A few days later, Lt. Kijowski reported that his informants claimed that on the day of Carvis’s murder, Robert Cardona was seen talking to two Black males, who were members of the Black Gangster Disciples.
On July 14, the detectives then interviewed Cardona. They said he told them he was walking by Carvis’s house on the day of the crime when he saw Higgins-Bey tapping on a window, so he approached. He was let in the front door by 27-year-old Michael McCastle, another member of the Black Gangster Disciples. Cardona allegedly said he realized a robbery was going on, so he left.
Halvorsen’s report of the interview said that Cardona encountered Higgins-Bey and McCastle later that day on the street and at Cardona’s apartment, and they said they had gotten money and jewelry in the robbery. Cardona was taken before a grand jury where he repeated the statement.
Based on his testimony, arrest warrants were requested for McCastle and Higgins-Bey, but the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office declined to authorize them. Despite that, police arrested Robert Cardona, his brother, Gregorio, as well as McCastle and Higgins-Bey on July 15, 1987.
Detectives Halvorsen and Dickinson spent hours interrogating all four, who would later claim that they were threatened, promised leniency, and told they would go home if they made statements implicating themselves and others in the Carvis murder. Ultimately, the Cardona brothers and Higgins-Bey gave court-reported confessions. McCastle asserted he never made any statement, but the detectives would later claim he made an oral admission.
According to the detectives, Higgins-Bey said he had met with the Cardona brothers, Rodriguez, McCastle, and Amador “Pee Wee” Torres on June 23, 1987, to plan a burglary of Carvis’s home. In his statement, Higgins-Bey said he walked in the back door (which could not have happened because the porch and stairs had been removed during construction) and went to the second floor with the others where a fight broke out. During the fight, Rodriguez stabbed Carvis, the statement said.
Officers then sought to arrest Torres.
Meanwhile, the detectives said that Robert Cardona gave yet another statement. This time, he said that he and his brother, Gregorio, went with Rodriguez, McCastle, Higgins-Bey and Torres to burglarize Carvis’s home. Cardona said that during a fight with Carvis, Rodriguez stabbed him.
At 11:30 p.m., the detectives interviewed Gregorio Cardona, who, according to their reports, said that he and Higgins-Bey went through the back door, went upstairs and saw McCastle, Rodriguez and Carvis fighting. Rodriguez stabbed Carvis and they left. Gregorio, according to the detectives, also said Torres was present.
Interrogations continued through the night. The detectives went from interrogation room to interrogation room. At one point, some of the suspects were shown Gregorio who was crying. They told the Cardona brothers that all of them were implicating each other. They fed them information about the crime, and promised they could go home if they gave statements, the four adult men would later claim.
On July 31, 1987, Torres, who was 15, turned himself in, accompanied by his juvenile probation officer. The probation officer said that Torres had been in the Audy Home, the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, on the day of the crime. When the detectives confirmed that Torres hadn’t been released until July 13, nearly three weeks after the crime, Torres was released.
At that point, Detective Reynaldo Guevara joined the investigation. Guevara knew a 19-year-old street gang member named Fernando Gomez, who Guevara called “Pee Wee.” Gomez and Guevara had had numerous confrontations in the past. As Gomez would later reveal, Guevara had attempted to get Gomez to falsely implicate individuals in crimes. When Gomez had refused to cooperate, Guevara dropped Gomez off in rival gang territory. On one occasion, Gomez was wearing his gang colors and as a result was shot in the chest by rival members. He had survived.
Gomez was arrested on August 28, 1987. The detectives would later say he was a member of the Cobras, although he actually was a member of the Maniac Latin Disciples.
Ultimately, following interrogation by Halvorsen and Guevara, Gomez allegedly admitted his involvement and implicated the Cardona brothers, Rodriguez, McCastle and Higgins-Bey.
By that time, Harry Rodriguez was in custody after being arrested for the robbery and murder of Masic.
The Cardona brothers, Rodriguez, McCastle, Higgins-Bey and Gomez were charged with capital murder, burglary, and home invasion.
By December 1987, Ramirez, once the prime suspect in Carvis’s murder, had been charged, along with Rodriguez and five others, with the murder of Masic. Also charged in that case were Jose Negron, Isabelo Nieves Jr., Edwin Marrero, Jamie Ruiz, and Angel Gonzalez.
Higgins-Bey and Gomez agreed to plead guilty and testify for the prosecution. They did so at the trials of Robert and Gregorio Cardona, Harry Rodriguez, and Michael McCastle.
The first to go to trial was Rodriguez. He was convicted of murder and burglary by a jury in Cook County Circuit Court on January 7, 1988. Judge Thomas Durkin ruled that Rodriguez was eligible for the death penalty, but found that Rodriguez’s lack of substantial criminal background was a sufficient mitigating factor, so he sentenced Rodriguez to life in prison without parole.
In March 1988, Rodriguez and Ramirez went to trial for the murder of Masic. Both were acquitted. Ultimately, only two of those charged in that murder were convicted: Jose Negron and Isabelo Nieves Jr. Marrero, Ruiz, and Gonzalez were acquitted.
McCastle went to trial for Carvis’s murder in 1989. On February 8, 1989, a jury convicted him of murder and burglary. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
On March 23, 1989, a jury convicted Robert Cardona of murder and burglary. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
Gregorio Cardona, charged as an adult, was convicted of murder and burglary by a jury on May 3, 1989. He was sentenced to 55 years in prison.
On May 25, 1989, Gomez pled guilty to burglary. He was sentenced to four years in prison and released after being given credit for time in the Cook County Jail.
On July 17, 1989, Higgins-Bey pled guilty to burglary and home invasion. He was sentenced to four years in prison and was also released after getting credit for time served.
Over the years, evidence began to emerge that Guevara and Halvorsen, sometimes in concert with other detectives, had coerced false confessions and false identifications from witnesses.
In 2004, Juan Johnson had been exonerated of a murder after evidence showed that Guevara had coerced three witnesses to falsely identify Johnson as the killer. In 2012, Jacques Rivera was exonerated of a murder after evidence showed that Guevara had coerced a 13-year-old boy to falsely identify Rivera as the killer.
Ultimately, the Illinois Innocence Project began investigating the case. In 2019, Higgins-Bey gave a sworn affidavit recanting his confession. “When I told the officers that I was not involved in the murder and I did not know who it was, I was slapped in the head,” he said. “I was smacked numerous times and the officers kept questioning me about the murder.”
“The officer told me that if I told them what they wanted to hear, they would let me go home,” he said. He said that he started adding names that the detectives fed to him and details of the crime that were fed to him.
Higgins-Bey said that he was moved to a special unit in the jail. “The preparations for the trials included going to the courtroom’s jury room to meet with [Assistant State’s Attorney] Bill Kopec and being told what to say,” he said in the affidavit. “I was joined in these sessions by Fernando Gomez.”
He said that before the first trial, he and Gomez were taken to Carvis’s house. “[W]e were told that the back of the house was under construction when the murder happened,” he said. “We were taken to the scene and shown the back entry way and told to change our testimony so that it fit with the way that the back of the house looked at the time of the murder.”
“I testified because I wanted to go home…and not because anyone I testified against had anything to do with the murder of Raymond Carvis,” Higgins-Bey said. “After I testified and before I was released, Bill Kopec gave me a money order for $750. The money was from a currency exchange and was not a check.”
On July 23, 2024, Gomez signed a sworn affidavit recanting his confession. He recounted his numerous encounters with Guevara. He said that in the mid-1980s, he was arrested for questioning after he returned from Puerto Rico. He said he was arrested after he got off the plane. “They would not tell me what I was being charged with,” he said. Gomez said that Guevara accused him of being involved a murder, and that when he said he had been in Puerto Rico on the day of the crime, Guevara “began to beat me and choke me–hitting me hard enough to make my face red and causing bruising around my eyes.”
Gomez said that when the police confirmed that he had been in Puerto Rico, Guevara “got angry and hit me again. By this point, I was scared of Detective Guevara; I thought he would kill me.”
After Gomez was arrested in 1987, Guevara told him he was being charged with murder because of the statements of the Cardona brothers. “When I said that I did not know who these brothers were, Detective Guevara started to choke and slap me on my head. He hit me so hard, he gave me a cut by my right eye, which I still have a scar from today.” He said Guevara also punched him in the chest.
Gomez said that Guevara’s partner, which, based on Gomez’s description was Halvorsen, gave him a statement and told him that if he signed it, he could go home. Gomez said he said he could not read or write English and had been in special education classes until he dropped out of school after the eighth grade. “I was tired and scared of Detective Guevara beating me to death, so I signed the papers,” Gomez said.
“Eventually, I agreed to say what Detective Guevara wanted me to say,” Gomez said. “He went over the details of the crime with me, and showed me photos of the victim and other people that he wanted me to name as being involved, including their names.”
Gomez said that prior to his testimony at the trials, prosecutor Kopec “gave me extensive details about the crime, including a description of the victim’s house and how the victim was put on the ground and tied up. He also told me to act out in court how the victim was put on the ground and tied up.”
His testimony at the trials, Gomez said, was fed to him. “All of the details of my testimony were fed to me by Assistant State’s Attorney Kopec, as well as the information the detectives had previously given me,” he said. “All of my testimony about meeting with my co-defendants prior to the murder was false,” Gomez said. “I had never met them in my life.”
On August 7, 2024, Lauren Kaesenberg and Brandon Klages, attorneys with the Illinois Innocence Project, and attorneys Michael Oppenheimer and Jon Neulieb, filed a post-conviction petition seeking to vacate the convictions of the Cardona brothers, McCastle, Rodriguez, Gomez and Higgins-Bey.
By that time, DNA testing had been conducted on the knives. All of the defendants were excluded and an unknown male profile was identified that was not Carvis.
The Cardona brothers and McCastle had been released on parole in late 2014 and early 2015. Rodriguez had died in prison on June 24, 2019.
The petition asked to vacate the convictions because of “the combination of the new DNA results, the recantations of Higgins-Bey and Gomez, and the pattern and practice of misconduct by State actors, including Detectives Halvorsen and Guevara.”
On July 1, 2025, the prosecution agreed to vacate the convictions and the charges were dismissed.
– Maurice Possley
Posting Date: 07-23-2025
