Two men were arrested in connection to the fatal shooting of an Illinois sheriff's investigator who was trying to protect his daughter and her boyfriend from an armed robbery, CBS News reported.
Cuauhtemoc Estrada, 50, was preparing for a family Christmas gathering on Friday night when he walked outside and saw two armed men trying to rob his daughter and her boyfriend. According to police, he identified himself and tried to intervene before he was fatally shot.
Andre Harvey, director of public safety for the Bellwood Police Department, told CBS Chicago that detectives were able to identify the suspects -- Gage Thornton and Brandon Jackson, both 22 -- through surveillance footage.
Both Thornton and Jackson were arrested on Saturday and charged with counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted armed robbery on Monday morning. A Cook County judge ordered both suspects to be held without bail.
Family members recalled him as a "beautiful person" who enjoyed organizing family parties and helped create Maywood's Festival Azteca.
"He was generally well-known throughout the community - one of the go-to people when you wanted to talk to a Hispanic person in the community," said former Maywood police Chief Tim Curry. "His family should know he was an important person to this community."
Estrada, a former Marine, worked in the Cook County Sheriff's Department for more than 20 years. He was most recently working in the electronic monitoring unit.
"He won't be able to see me walking across the stage when I graduate from college," Estrada's 19-year-old daughter, Cristina, told WMAQ-Channel 5 in tears outside their home in Maywood on Saturday. "He was just a good person, a father. He was always there for us. He just wanted us to succeed in life."
