Crime & Safety

Dead Baby's Mom: Kept Having Sex With Suspect to Crack Case

The mother of a baby beaten to death in 2008 said she continued her relationship with the man charged with killing her child because she "wanted to find out what happened."

By Joseph Hosey

During the months a West Chicago woman carried on sexually with a boyfriend suspected of killing her baby, she was trying to "find out what happened" to the child, she testified Thursday.

Defense attorney Joseph "Shark" Lopez questioned Sandra Sitko about her once- to thrice-weekly sex dates with Santos Loza, the Plainfield man who would ultimately be charged with beating her son to death.

Sitko spent the entire day on the witness stand but was unable remember the answers to most of the questions asked by Lopez, who is defending Loza along with attorneys Alexander Beck and Adam Altman.

Near the end of her testimony, Lopez asked Sitko whether she may have had another motive for sticking with Loza after her 8-month-old son, Kevion Bender, died in October 2008.

"You enjoyed his company and you enjoyed sex with him, isn't that the real reason?" Lopez asked.

Sitko disagreed.

Loza, 33, faces up to 100 years in prison if convicted of Kevion's murder. Sitko on Thursday told how she met Loza on the Internet in July or August 2008, rendezvoused with him at a Walmart, and then headed over to his then home in Joliet with her two kids, Kevion and 5-year-old Dillon, in tow.

Loza moved to Plainfield prior to his arrest in August 2010.

Sitko said she brought both Kevion and Dillon with her when she spent the night with Loza. Dillon slept on a couch when he stayed at Loza's townhouse and Kevion was put to bed on the floor.

The night before Kevion died, Sitko went to work at a West Chicago McDonald's and left Loza to watch the boy. She returned from work about 11 p.m., she said, and looked in on Kevion from a doorway but did not actually check his condition.

Less than six hours later, Sitko discovered her son was not breathing. Loza called 911 and he and Sitko tried to revive the child. Kevion was pronounced dead at St. Joseph Medical Center.

Besides questioning Sitko about her continued relationship with Loza, Lopez also asked her about the numerous text messages she and he exchanged and to explain a photograph of herself she sent to his cell phone.

Sitko first said she was "not sure" what she wore in the photograph she took of herself in her bedroom and sent to Loza just weeks after her baby died. When Lopez asked if she put on "lingerie" for the picture Sitko recalled that she was clad in pajamas.

"Were you teasing him?" Lopez asked. Sitko said there was "no purpose, really" for the photograph.

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