Inset (left): Arnoldo Jimenez in 2011 (FBI Chicago). Inset (right): Estrella Carrera (Facebook). Background: News footage of Estrella Carrera”s apartment in Burbank, Ill. (WFLD).
Federal authorities in Illinois have announced that a man accused of murdering his wife on their wedding night is now in custody after fleeing the country.
Arnoldo Jimenez, 44, was charged with first-degree murder in connection with the 2012 death of his wife, 26-year-old Estrella Carrera. Carrera’s body was found in the bathtub of her apartment in Burbank, Illinois, two days after she and Jimenez got married in a civil ceremony in Chicago City Hall on May 11, 2012. Authorities said Jimenez called several of his friends on May 13, 2012, and told them that he and Carrera got into a physical altercation.
According to reporting by local Fox affiliate WFLD, Carrera’s family requested a welfare check at her home, and Burbank Police Department officers found her in her bathtub, dead from multiple stab wounds. She was wearing the same dress she was seen wearing at her wedding reception.
WFLD reported that police found a Maserati registered to Jimenez at his brother’s home in Chicago. Police said evidence from the scene, including blood matching Carrera’s DNA, broken jewelry, and shattered glass, suggested that Carrera had been attacked inside the car and moved to her bathtub.
Police said that days after Jimenez told friends he was going to turn himself in, his cellphone records revealed that he was in Texas. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago office said he then fled to Mexico, where he remained at large until Mexico’s FiscalÃa General de la República (FGR), working alongside Interpol, apprehended him on Jan. 30, 2025. FBI Chicago announced on June 18 that Jimenez was now in the United States.
Jimenez faces a charge of first-degree murder in Cook County. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that he arrived at Chicago O’Hare International Airport on June 18. He was due to appear in court on Monday.
