An Uptown man has been charged in the murder of a DePaul University employee whose burnt body was found earlier this week inside her garage.
The suspect had been drinking with the woman before he allegedly beat and strangled her, then lit her body on fire on a bag of charcoal.
Here is the story from the Chicago Tribune:
Pedro Cruz had been drinking in his Uptown apartment for hours with his neighbor last week before he beat and strangled her, carried her body down three flights of stairs, and set her ablaze in the building’s garage, Cook County prosecutors said Saturday.
Then, he allegedly told police, he went back upstairs and fell asleep.
Cruz, 25, was charged Saturday with first-degree murder in the death of Maria Santiago, 54, and held without bail.
Santiago’s body was discovered after her sister, who lived with her, woke about 8 a.m. Thursday to the sound of Santiago’s Pomeranian barking in the stairway of the three-flat building in the 5000 block of North Clark Street, according to a friend of the family.
Peering out the kitchen window, the sister saw smoke coming from the garage. She went to investigate, finding Santiago beneath a blanket and a burning bag of charcoal briquettes, said Windy Pitre, a friend of Santiago’s since childhood.
“She was a wonderful, caring person,” Pitre said. “She would not hurt anyone.”
The Cook County medical examiner’s office determined that Santiago died of strangulation, and had multiple blunt force trauma injuries, including five broken ribs and a ruptured spleen, court records state.
Pitre said Cruz, a Mexican national who worked as a dishwasher, had sold Santiago a TV on Wednesday. Santiago, who worked on a cleaning crew at DePaul University and spent much of her time caring for an elderly mother and a mentally disabled older sister, seldom socialized with Cruz.
But the two wound up drinking together that night with a mutual male friend in Cruz’s apartment, Pitre said.
When the friend prepared to leave about 3 a.m., he asked Santiago to leave with him, Pitre said.
Declining, Santiago reportedly responded: “He’s my neighbor. I live right downstairs. What’s he going to do to me?”
Services are set for Thursday at Caribe Funeral Home, 3314 W. Armitage Ave., Chicago.
