Woman Pleads Guilty In Bucktown Bat Attack
CHICAGO (STMW) -- The woman who drove the get-away car after her boyfriend beat two women with a baseball bat in Bucktown in 2010 pleaded guilty Tuesday and will testify against him, prosecutors said.
Marcy Cruz pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted murder and was sentenced to 11 years in prison for each count, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said. By law she must serve at least 85 percent of the sentence before being eligible for parole.
As part of the plea, Cruz, 28, will testify against co-defendant Heriberto Viramontes, 34, when his trial starts Sept. 9, according to the state's attorney's office.
The two were accused of the April 23, 2012, beating and robbery of Stacy Jurich and Natasha McShane in April 2010 under a railroad viaduct in the 1800 block of North Damen Avenue.
Jurich, then 24, and McShane, then 23, had been out celebrating a glowing job review that Jurich recently received and an internship that McShane, an exchange student from Northern Ireland, received. The women were walking from a Wicker Park bar to Jurich's Bucktown home when they were attacked and robbed of their purses.
Cruz allegedly told Viramontes to "look at all those drunk a------- coming out of the bar" after he said he needed "quick money and drugs," prosecutors said during her bond hearing. Viramontes then jumped from her van, attacked the women and got back in the van, which sped away.
Jurich needed 15 staples in her head, prosecutors said. McShane was in a coma and didn't return to Northern Ireland until July 2010, where she struggled to learn to talk, walk and move her arms, her family had told the Sun-Times.
Cruz was identified in a video as using credit cards stolen from the women, according to an arrest report. She had previously been arrested for minor crimes, but never charged.
Viramontes has felony convictions for burglary and possession of a stolen vehicle, and about 30 other arrests on his record.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2013. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
