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Anita Alvarez
Cook County State's Attorney
Communications Department
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 603-3423
saomedia@cookcountygov.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

April 16, 2010

A West Suburban man was sentenced to 29 years in prison today for killing a pizza delivery man who worked for him in a murder case that went unsolved for 27 years, according to the Office of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.
 
Michael Cosmano, 58, of Naperville, was charged in 2008 with the 1981 murder of Milton Rodriguez, 29, who at the time worked at the defendant’s pizzeria located on Chicago’s near Northwest Side. 

The murder, which occurred on June 12, 1981, happened in the alley behind the pizzeria, which at the time was located at 1949 W. Chicago Avenue.  According to prosecutors, Rodriguez worked as a deliveryman at the time of the murder and was attempting to organize fellow deliverymen to obtain pay raises and improved working conditions at the pizzeria. 

According to witness testimony in the trial, Rodriguez and Cosmano became involved in a heated argument concerning the pay raises in the alley behind the pizzeria and Cosmano pulled a semi-automatic handgun and fatally shot Rodriguez once in the chest, according to prosecutors.

The case had gone unsolved until 2007 when a witness came forward and identified Cosmano as the shooter.  The Chicago Police and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Cold Case units then reopened the investigation and identified several other witnesses who also identified Cosmano as the shooter and testified at the trial.

Cosmano was convicted in a jury trial earlier this year and today Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced him to 29 years in prison.

Alvarez thanked investigators from the Chicago Police Department’s Cold Case Unit and Assistant State’s Attorney’s Matthew Thrun and William Merritt of the State’s Attorney’s Cold Case Unit for their work on the case.

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