Westmont, IL: Westmont man jailed on $2 million bail in estranged wife's strangling

April 12, 2010
By DAN ROZEK Staff Reporter
A Westmont man who’s charged with killing his estranged wife by strangling her as their three children slept in another part of their home was ordered jailed today on $2 million bail.

Ian Alamilla, 33, is accused of killing Tara Alamilla, 34, early Saturday in the Westmont home they once shared.

DuPage County prosecutors said he later drove to Chicago and surrendered at about 5:30 a.m. to Chicago police, telling officers he had quarreled with his wife and that “someone needs to check on her,” prosecutor Robert Berlin said as Alamilla appeared in bond court to face a charge of first-degree murder.

Chicago police contacted authorities in Westmont, who went to the home and found Tara Alamilla dead in her bed, Berlin said. The couple’s three children — ages 5, 7, and 11 — were found asleep and unharmed elsewhere in the home, Berlin said.

The mother’s murder came on the birthday of the couple’s youngest child.

“The heartbreaking, senseless loss of life in this case is compounded because it involves three young children who have lost their mother and now see their father accused of taking her life,” DuPage County State’s Attorney Joseph Birkett said.

Tara Alamilla was fully clothed and had sustained bruises to her throat, Berlin said. An autopsy found she had been strangled.

She had filed March 5 for divorce from her husband of about eight years.

Ian Alamilla, a native of Belize, had been living with a friend in another suburb, Berlin said.

He will have to surrender his passport if he can come up with the $200,000 bond needed to secure his release from jail.