Man charged with murdering wife in Carol Stream

A Carol Stream man has been accused of stabbing his wife to death in front of one of their children.

Baltazar Perez-Estrada, 32, of the 600 block of Gundersen Drive, was arrested April 1 after he came to the Carol Stream Police Department, according to DuPage County Circuit Court records.

Perez-Estrada faces five counts of first-degree murder.

According to the charges, Perez-Estrada stabbed Maricela Simon-Franco, 26, about 10 p.m. March 31 in their home.

According to a petition for pretrial detention filed by Assistant State’s Attorney Lee Roupas, a man came to the Carol Stream Police Department the morning of April 1 saying his brother had told him about a stabbing. He had been asked by his brother to pick up a man and his two daughters at the Glenside Library in Glendale Heights. They were wet, cold and covered in mud, so he took them to buy clothes and then to his brother’s house to shower. Perez-Estrada told the brother about the stabbing and the brother told the man, according to the petition.

A little while later, Perez-Estrada entered the police station and told a social services worker that he had learned his wife had a boyfriend, they argued and Perez-Estrada stabbed her, according to the petition.

According to the petition, the defendant’s daughter was in a bedroom with her younger sister, heard her parents arguing and saw her father “hitting” her mother with the knife. The girl told police her father then threw the knife in a nearby pond.

The couple had been married about nine years. The victim’s uncle said the victim had been at his apartment earlier March 31 and had said she was going to leave Perez-Estrada, according to the petition.

A medical examiner determined Simon-Franco had been stabbed several dozen times in the face, head, neck, arms and chest and was almost decapitated, according to the petition.

According to the petition, Perez-Estrada had been living in Mexico for several months, but returned March 11. He was charged by federal authorities with illegal entry and released.

On March 17, Carol Stream police were called to the home for a domestic incident, but no criminal charges were filed, according to the petition.

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