Trial begins in 'Little Nico' slaying

March 31, 2008
BY BEACON NEWS STAFF
The trial was to begin Monday for Elias Diaz, 38, the Aurora man charged as being the driver in the 1996 murder of 6-year-old Nico Contreras.

Diaz waived his right to a jury trial, so opening arguments are to take place before Judge Timothy Sheldon in Kane County Circuit Court beginning at 1 p.m. Monday.

Prosecutors say Diaz drove accused shooter Mark Downs to the home of the boy’s grandparents on Aurora’s near East Side. Downs fired shots into a bedroom where the boy was sleeping early on the morning of Nov. 10, 1996, prosecutors said. Nico was shot twice in the back.

Downs fired at the house in retaliation for another gang shooting and mistakenly shot the sleeping boy, police said.

Both Diaz and Downs are charged with murder.

No one was charged in the case for a more than a decade, until Aurora police arrested Diaz in December 2006.

Among the witnesses prosecutors expect to call Monday afternoon was Nico’s mother, Sandi Contreras.



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