Sitting on the hallway floor outside a Cook County courtroom, Vicente Colores-Chalmers on Thursday pulled up a September 2018 video of his fiancée, Shane Colombo.
Colombo, 25, had just walked into an apartment the couple had first purchased in Evanston, and sent Colores-Chalmers a video of herself there, smiling and saying hello. About two hours after sending the video to Colores-Chalmers, Colombo, a prospective doctoral candidate at Northwestern University, was shot and killed near Clark Street and Howard Avenue in Rogers Park.
On Thursday evening, a jury found Diante Speed, now 26, guilty of first-degree murder after about four hours of deliberation. In the courtroom at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Colombo’s mother, Tonya Colombo, gasped as the verdict was read. Speed’s mother and grandmother, across the courtroom, remained silent.
Shortly after the court dismissal, Tonya Colombo, 58, grinned. It had been six anxious years of waiting and “wanting justice, wanting to give him peace,” she said. “Now I feel like we can finally do that.”
The wait for the trial was stressful for both parents. Shane Colombo’s father, Ernesto, brought a torn file of paperwork with him every day of the court proceedings. The file contained everything from his son’s birth and death certificates to his Social Security card and notes of conversations he had with investigators. He poured much of his grief into the complexities of Speed’s legal process and criminal history, even though he knew it wouldn’t undo the events of six years ago.
“Nothing will bring him back,” said Ernesto Colombo. “(But) we have reached the point where we are seeking justice.”
During closing arguments Thursday, prosecutors said justice means nothing less than a conviction for first-degree murder. Whether Speed was targeting Shane Colombo or someone else, Assistant State’s Attorney James Papa said, “the law does not allow a shooter to be a bad shooter.”
“(Speed) made Howard and Clark Street his own target,” Assistant State’s Attorney Kim Ward said. “He was a threat and a menace to everyone out there, and the person who paid the price was Shane Colombo.”
Speed’s attorneys focused on arguing that Speed shot in self-defense, looking for a man in a white tank top who Speed said was threatening him and his friends.
Surveillance footage showed Colombo collapsed on the sidewalk, but no one was seen firing a weapon. Assistant District Attorney Sarah Fransene said there was no footage of Speed’s alleged intended target making the threats that they claimed made Speed fear for his safety.
“Just because the video doesn’t capture every angle of what happened at Clark and Howard that night doesn’t mean something didn’t happen,” Fransene said.
Defense attorneys also tried to raise suspicion about the Chicago Police Department’s handling of the shooting scene and accused the detective of lying to Speed about how much of the shooting was captured on video. They acknowledged that the case was tragic and high-profile and suggested to the jury that police felt pressure to make progress in the case.
While prosecutors focused on Speed’s words in a phone call to his mother, in which he said, “I was shooting and I hit an innocent person; I hit a white man and he’s dead.” Speed’s attorneys instead focused on the story he gave to his mother during the same phone call; claiming a man in a tank top threatened him.
Colombo’s death was “a senseless, terrible, terrible tragedy,” Fransene said. “But you cannot allow sympathy or any other prejudice to influence your judgment on this matter.”
As he waited for the verdict Thursday afternoon, Colores-Chalmers sorted through photos of Colombo on his phone. Colombo was always moving, he said. He always had a skateboard. He was always late, often because he wanted to be ‘everywhere at once’.
Although Colores-Chalmers said he immediately knew he wanted to marry Colombo when they met at a fraternity event, the couple became engaged in 2017. Colombo wanted to perform James Blake’s song “Retrograde” at their wedding. Colores-Chalmers is married, but he still can’t listen to the stacks of playlists Colombo made for him during their relationship.
He lived in Evanston for three years, in the apartment he bought to share with Colombo. For the first few months, Colores-Chalmers brought flowers to the site where he was killed every day. He took public transportation through the same streets that prosecutors and defense attorneys referenced during the trial. He left Chicago and studied to become a death doula, focused on supporting dying people and their loved ones.
“The expression when you see someone (deceased) and have to identify him is terrible,” he said. “I don’t want to live in a world where people can leave and their last experience is horrible. Wouldn’t you like to be helped and given dignity, respect and love?”
He hopes to work in hospitals, but also in jails and prisons, where he will certainly encounter people convicted of crimes like the one that killed Colombo.
Colores-Chalmers said before the jury returned that he wanted to see the case resolved, but expressed sympathy for the socio-economic pressures that can land people in the criminal justice system.
“I think it’s a shame that he didn’t get support and that he didn’t have an outlet to transform his life,” said Colores-Chalmers, 34, who wore Colombo’s engagement ring on a chain around his neck. “I hope he has a better life after this. Maybe he will be taken care of.”
Speed will be sentenced on December 3.
