From the State’s Attorney:
RAYNARDO O. GONZALEZ SENTENCED TO 16 YEARS IN THE ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS FOR TWO COUNTS OF DRUG INDUCED HOMICIDE
McHenry County State’s Attorney Randi Freese announces that on August 11, 2025, Raynardo O. Gonzalez, 54, of Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced to a total of sixteen years in the Illinois Department of Corrections by the Honorable Tiffany Davis.
Gonzalez entered a negotiated plea to two counts of Drug-Induced Homicide, a Class X felony, where he accepted responsibility for his act of conducting a heroin transaction in Chicago that resulted in the fatal overdose deaths of two Harvard residents.
In August of 2022, the Harvard Police began an investigation after two next door neighbors in a residential neighborhood both suffered fatal heroin overdoses on the same day.
Gonzalez had been a long-time friend of the first victim.
The investigation revealed that the first victim had traveled from his home in Harvard to meet Gonzalez in Chicago to purchase heroin for both himself and his neighbor.
Following the transaction, that victim immediately drove back to Harvard and gave his neighbor his portion of the purchased heroin.
Both men ingested the heroin within their respective homes, which resulted in their deaths.
With input and agreement of both victims’ families, Gonzalez was sentenced to a ten year prison sentence on Count 1 to run consecutive to six years on Count 2 for a total sentence of sixteen years imprisonment.
Truth-in-Sentencing will require that Gonzalez serve 75 percent of his sentence prior to release from custody. Following that prison sentence, he will be placed on a term of Mandatory Supervised Release for 18 months.
State’s Attorney Freese is grateful for the extensive efforts of Sergeant Eric See of the Harvard Police Department and the collaborative work with FBI Special Agent Jeremy Bauer of the Chicago Field Office of the Cellular Analysis Survey Team.
Freese is proud of the work that the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office does in partnership with law enforcement to prosecute overdose deaths in McHenry County.
She emphasized that, “all drug dealers who sell death to McHenry County residents will be investigated and prosecuted, regardless of whether or not they physically set foot in McHenry County.”
This case was successfully prosecuted by Chief of Staff Ashley Romito and Assistant State’s Attorney Shelby Page with the important assistance of State’s Attorney’s Office Victim Witness Coordinator, Polo Fabian.
