CHICAGO — As he sat dying in the driver's seat of his SUV, Chicago Police Detective Robert Soto dialed 911 on his cell phone and told police he had been shot.
Still conscious when officers reached him moments later, the off-duty Soto was able to utter a few words. A robbery. Three men. A maroon car fleeing west.
Soto's dying words were key to getting investigators off on the right foot, Chief of Detectives Thomas Byrne said Monday as police announced charges against the man alleged to be the triggerman.
"If we didn't have Detective Soto's own words, motive would have been open to speculation," Byrne said.
Thursday, a day after the shooting, the bomb and arson detective died of wounds in his head and chest. His friend, Kathryn Romberg, had also suffered a fatal gunshot wound in the head as the two sat in Soto's SUV outside Romberg's West Side residence.
From the beginning, investigators were focused on searching for a violent and reckless robbery crew, police said. In talking to witnesses and residents in the area, investigators said the same name kept coming up: J-Rock.
Late Saturday morning, investigators from the Narcotics and Gang Intelligence Section and the U.S. marshals fugitive task force picked up Jason Austin, also known as J-Rock, at his home in the 500 block of North Leclaire Avenue.
Police also seized his maroon Buick Regal, a car they say matches Soto's description as well as a vehicle seen on private security video at the time of the murders.
Cook County prosecutors charged Austin, 26, on Monday with two counts of murder and one count of robbery.
After a judge ordered Austin held without bail later in the day, Steve Decker, Austin's attorney, said the father of three is innocent and that police arrested the wrong man based on the statements of people who may be misleading authorities.
Family members claimed the Buick was being repaired at the time of the killings. Decker also said the whereabouts of Austin's car may prove his innocence.
Neighbor Tenisha Reese said police rammed down the Austin family's front door Saturday morning, against protests from his grandmother. As they put a handcuffed Austin into the squad car, the grandmother followed the officers down the front walkway and begged them to reconsider, Reese said.
"He didn't do it! He didn't do it!" Reese recalled his grandmother saying. "Please, it's not him."
Soto, 49, and Romberg, 45, a supervisor with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, were shot early Wednesday in the 3000 block of West Franklin Boulevard on the West Side."Two families still grieve, but they are relieved," said Police Supt. Jody Weis at a news conference held to announce the charges.
At Monday's bond hearing, Assistant State's Atty. Maria McCarthy said Austin was driving a maroon Buick Regal and pulled up behind Soto's SUV about 1:30 a.m., parked, got out, went to the driver's side window and pointed a gun at Soto, demanding money.
"The victim then was seen fumbling through his wallet, and the defendant then took items from [Soto]," McCarthy said. "The defendant then fired four shots into the car."
About a block and a half west, four witnesses heard gunshots and saw the Buick speed westbound on Franklin, McCarthy said.
All four recognized Austin as the driver as well as two others in the car, she said.
Austin later told a friend that he had "hit a lick — which means committed a robbery — and that the area would be hot because a police officer had been shot," McCarthy said. "The defendant also told several people to give a false alibi for himself and the two occupants."
Austin has five previous convictions, three for drug-related offenses. His only conviction for a violent crime came in October 2005. He was charged with attempted murder but was found guilty of aggravated battery.
McCarthy said Austin drove a co-defendant to pick up a gun and then took him to another location, knowing that the co-defendant was going to shoot someone.
Austin's aunt Polly White, 47, said after the bond hearing that police jumped to conclusions about her nephew and charged the wrong man.
"Let's find out the truth," White said. "Let's not just assume or pick somebody up because you want it over with."
Soto, a 23-year police veteran, had been sitting in his SUV for more than an hour talking with Romberg. They were parked on the street outside her condominium.
There were concerns among police and others who knew the victims and the nature of their work that they may have been targeted for reasons other than robbery. In addition, Soto was married to someone else.
But police said evidence of a robbery, including other similar crimes committed recently in the area, supported Soto's dying declaration.
Investigators said there were similarities to a July 30 robbery in the 3100 block of West Franklin Boulevard in which no one was injured and the Aug. 10 murder of a pizzeria manager in a botched robbery at Wolcott and Grand Avenues on the Near West Side.
Austin has not been accused in either of those crimes, Byrne said.