Dontrell Anderson, right inset, faces charges in the killing of Itzel Camarena, left inset. (Victim’s photo from GoFundMe; Crime scene screenshot from WGN News/YouTube; Mug shot from Chicago Police Department)
A man is accused of killing a pregnant woman at his Chicago apartment and prosecutors said he was seen in surveillance video dragging her body into an alley.
Dontrell Anderson, 26, faces charges of first-degree murder and conceal homicidal death in the killing of Itzel Camarena, 24, authorities said.
He was arrested by members of the Chicago Police Department and the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force on Friday in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, according to a news release from the Chicago Police Department.
Authorities found Camarena’s body on Feb. 18 in an alley in the 8200 block of South Vernon Avenue with a gunshot wound to her face, police said. She was six months pregnant.
Local ABC affiliate WLS reported she had been shot while visiting the suspect’s family home. The victim’s family members said the two had gone to high school together. But a suspected motive was not clear.
At a court hearing on Saturday, prosecutors said surveillance video allegedly shows the suspect dragging her body — wrapped in a sheet — from his apartment into an alley and leaving it near a dumpster, Chicago CBS affiliate WBBM reported.
Family members, meanwhile, mourned the young woman who dreamed of starting a cosmetics business.
“What this individual did is so not fair. Why would he do this to somebody?” said Juanita Sanchez, Camarena’s aunt, WLS reported.
Her mother said her daughter did not know the baby’s gender, but if the baby had been a girl, she would have named her Itzayana — which means, “gift from God,” WLS reported.
“I just want answers,” she said through tears, the outlet reported. “I want to know who did it to my baby, to my oldest. And I can’t believe it happened to … to my family, to me, to my daughter, to her unborn baby. She was six months.”
The family said on a fundraising site that while they are shattered, they are determined to get justice.
“Our family is shattered, but our resolve to support Itzel’s family in their time of need is unwavering,” the page said. No family should ever have to endure the pain of losing a loved one to such violence, and we stand united in our determination to seek justice and ensure that Itzel and the unborn baby memory is honored.”
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