CHICAGO — A man accused of teaming up with his teenage girlfriend to ambush and decapitate another man before fleeing to New Jersey has been arrested, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Monday.
Milton Miranda, who has not been charged, is accused of bursting into Daisy Gutierrez's bedroom as she undressed for Jose Reyes, 29, as a ruse before the May 21 murder, authorities said.
Miranda is being held in Morris County Jail in Morristown, N.J., on a warrant issued from Chicago and is awaiting extradition, said Daniel O'Brien, a Chicago Police Department spokesman.
Miranda beat Reyes, slit his throat, cut his head off and helped bury his dismembered body in pieces in a Southwest Side back yard, authorities said.
Prosecutors have said the couple killed the man because he had been flirting with the now-pregnant Gutierrez, who is the mother of two children fathered by the dead man's brother.
Reyes' body was found in the back yard of a home in the 8300 block of South Scottsdale Avenue this weekend.
McCarthy credited determined investigators with solving the crime.
“The detective had this case as a missing person’s case, and he was very relentless in figuring out what happened to this young man,” McCarthy said. “We got some information that we were able to follow up, which is what led us to the residence and the location where the body was subsequently found.”
Charged this weekend in connection with the murder was Gutierrez, 19, and her father, Salvador Gutierrez, who is accused of helping to bury Reyes' body.
Prosecutors said at Sunday hearing that Daisy Gutierrez and her boyfriend carried out the heinous crime on May 21 after plotting to lure the victim to the Gutierrez's home. Her boyfriend didn't like the way the victim, the brother of her ex-boyfriend, was attracted to the teen, according to prosecutors.
After Reyes was dead, Gutierrez told her father she had "fixed the problem," prosecutors said.
When Salvador Gutierrez returned to the home he shared with his daughter, she and her boyfriend persuaded him to help them dispose of Reyes’ body, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors said Salvador Gutierrez watched as the boyfriend dismembered Reyes' body.
Prosecutors said both Daisy and Salvador Gutierrez confessed to their roles in Reyes’ death. Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil ordered Daisy Gutierrez held on $2 million bond, and her father, 56-year-old Salvador Gutierrez, held on $500,000 bond.
