Father of 4 fatally shot in West Town

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A family is devastated after a 49-year-old father of four was shot and killed while walking home from work in the city's West Town neighborhood early Tuesday morning.

Aristeo "Pasqual" Soriano was gunned down while walking home from work at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Soriano was on his way home from D'amato's Bakery, where the owner said he had worked for at least 25 years. He was a dedicated, special employee.

"I didn't baptize none of his kids but I call him my 'pasqual' because he's real close, he's my compadre, you know," said Victor D'amato.

"He never gave trouble to nobody. He was a nice guy and he was all the time at work," said Jose Garcia, Soriano's coworker.

Coworkers said Soriano got off work at 2 a.m. He started to walk home, less than a mile away. Because Wednesday was his day off, he planned to stop at a friend's house, a coworker named Felipe Leon.

While walking, Soriano was speaking with Leon on the phone, and was right in front of Leon's house in the 1300-block of West Huron Street. Leon, who only speaks Spanish, told his coworkers he heard a noise.

"He told me, I heard like somebody break a bottle. So he open the door and that's when Pasqual fall inside by the door," Garcia said.

Soriano collapsed in Leon's doorway, shot. The bullet splintered the door. Now candles are lit on the doorstep.

Soriano's family is devastated.

"He broke my heart, he broke my everything," said Oscar Soriano, the victim's son, through tears.

"I'm holding in my tears. I cried a lot, but he's just stopping me. I feel like my father's telling me, 'Don't cry no more,'" said Magaly Soriano, daughter.

"This changes on the family structure. If they were dependent on their father, that changes the whole structure," said Andrew Holmes, community crisis responder.

"The family's, it's not good right now, you know. I don't know," Oscar said.

"My father was a nice guy. He was a caring person. I loved him so much," Magaly said.

Leon said Soriano was known to have bad eyesight, but that he was able to give a very, very vague description of the man who shot him before he was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he died.

Police said Soriano had no known gang affiliation. The suspect is described only as a black male unknown to Soriano.