COOK COUNTY COURTHOUSE — Daniel Kralik was supposed to be "cooling off" at a friend's house the night he strangled his girlfriend to death after a domestic dispute in her Humboldt Park apartment, prosecutors said.
Instead, he was with Victoria McManus at her place in the 1200 block of North Rockwell Street, prosecutors said.
The couple, together more than two years, had recently broken up because the 26-year-old McManus met someone else, prosecutors said. They reconciled and got back together.
But about two weeks later, on Wednesday, Kralik and McManus were fighting again, prosecutors said.
Kralik, 31, was supposed to be staying with a friend until he cooled off when he strangled McManus and left her lying on her bed with a pillow over her face, prosecutors said.
Kralik, who appeared in court Thursday wearing nothing but shorts and a plastic jumpsuit issued to him by the jail, was ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail.
Kralik, of the 2200 block of West Iowa Street, admitted to a 911 operator that he strangled McManus, prosecutors said.
McManus was pronounced dead on the scene at 12:55 a.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.