Man who dreamed of aiding family in El Salvador is fatally shot

REVERE -- Oscar Portillo-Lemus worked 80 hours a week at two Boston restaurants, using his earnings to buy land in his native El Salvador to build a house for six younger siblings. But his dreams of providing a better life for his family ended Sunday when someone fatally shot him in the neck in a possible robbery. He was Revere's first homicide victim of 2005.

The killer, or killers, left behind $1,021 in cash, according to relatives of Portillo-Lemus, 21, a prep cook.

''He was such a good kid," Ivelisse E. Aguilar, a relative, said yesterday in an interview in East Boston, where several relatives gathered to mourn his death. ''All he ever did was work, work, work."

According to relatives and co-workers at the Chart House restaurant on Atlantic Avenue in Boston and at the Smith and Wollensky steak house in Park Square, Portillo-Lemus worked full-time shifts each week at the two restaurants.

Portillo-Lemus' older brother, Mario, said his younger brother followed him to Boston from El Salvador about three years ago. Mario Portillo-Lemus came to America eight years ago. He said there are three siblings in Boston, and another seven siblings in Agua Caliente, a small town of less than 5,000 people in El Salvador.

Mario Portillo-Lemus said his brother recently purchased a small plot of land in their native village where he planned to build a house for his younger siblings, who are cared for by their elderly father.

Mario Portillo-Lemus said he and other siblings played instruments, and that he and Oscar were planning to buy a violin for Oscar to play at family gatherings.

On Sunday, Oscar Portillo-Lemus left Smith and Wollensky's around 4 p.m., said Michael Cahill, chief steward of the Park Square restaurant. Portillo-Lemus then returned to Revere, where he was living in an apartment on North Shore Road, relatives said.

Shortly before 5 p.m. Oscar Portillo-Lemus and a cousin, also named Mario, stopped in at one of his usual haunts -- the Brazilian convenience store at North Shore Road and Centennial Avenue. He cashed two checks totaling $1,021 there, according to store owner Vinnie Teixeira.

Moments after they left the store, Teixeira said a woman ran inside and told her husband that someone had tried to pull open the door to their car while she was in it. Teixeira and the customer's husband ran outside and looked down Centennial Avenue toward Garfield Avenue, where he saw Portillo-Lemus lying crumpled on the ground. He called 911.

Teixeira said Oscar Portillo-Lemus would stop in the store every morning around 9 a.m. to buy himself a can of an energy booster. ''He was a good guy," said Teixeira.

Elaine M. Mori, a Centennial Avenue resident, said she was in her bedroom in the rear of her house when she heard a single ''loud bang. There were no raised voices." She said she did not think much of it, remarking, ''I never heard the sound of a gunshot until [Sunday]," when police and an ambulance arrived.

Revere police referred all questions to the office of Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. David Procopio, a spokesman for Conley, said robbery is one motive being investigated, but added that a conclusion has not been reached. Relatives said they believed some items were missing from Oscar Portillo-Lemus.

Anyone with information is asked to call Revere police at 781 284-1212, or the State Police detective unit at 617-727-8817.