Ten Years Since Girls' Deaths, Suspect Awaits Trial
CHICAGO (CBS) -- It's now been a decade since two young girls disappeared from the far north suburbs and were later found dead.
The man charged in their deaths is still awaiting a trial, Newsradio's Bernie Tafoya reports.
Nine-year-old Krystal Tobias and eight-year-old Laura Hobbs had been stabbed to death. Their bodies were found 10 years ago on Saturday in a park in Zion.
Hobbs' father was initially suspected and investigators coerced a confession. Jerry Hobbs spent five years in prison before DNA tests linked the crime to another man, Jorge Torrez.
Torrez already has been convicted of rape and murder on the East Coast.
His trial in the two girls' deaths may be set for sometime in 2016.
Hobbs found the girls' bodies in May of 2005 and confessed after a 24-hour interrogation by Zion detectives.
Further testing later matched DNA to Torrez, a former U.S. Marine and former Zion resident. In 2014, Torrez was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2009 rape and murder Navy Petty Officer Amanda Snell.
Hobbs' lawyers say that Virginia crime would never have happened if Lake County investigators hadn't botched their investigation by focusing on Hobbs.
Podcast
Jerry Hobbs reads his confession:
Hobbs returned to Wichita Falls, Texas in 2010 after being released from prison in Illinois. Hobbs has been arrested since his return to Wichita County (Texas) on drug charges, assault family violence and DWI.
