Man gets 30 years for using screwdriver to kill wife in hospital bathroom
A sorrowful chapter in the lives of the Bahena siblings concluded Monday when their father, Javier Bahena-Arellano of McHenry, admitted stabbing to death his estranged wife, Francisca Quintero-Montoya, at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village while family members struggled futilely to save her.
Bahena-Arellano, 46, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in exchange for a 30-year sentence.
Jocelyn Bahena, 23, one of the couple's three children, expressed relief.
"The sentencing is fair," she said tearfully. "Now we need time to heal."
Quintero-Montoya, 42, and her extended family were gathered at the cardiac care unit on March 22, 2015, grieving the loss of her brother, who suffered a heart attack and died about 9:30 a.m. that day, said Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Denise Loiterstein.
Bahena-Arellano took a cellphone from his wife of 20 years, who he believed was cheating on him, prosecutors said. Angry about the messages, he got a screwdriver from his truck and returned to the waiting room, then followed Quintero-Montoya into a restroom, Loiterstein said.
He locked the door and stabbed her twice in the back and once in the chest. Alerted by her screams, family members attempted to rescue her. When they finally broke through the door, they saw Bahena-Arellano standing above the victim "with a screwdriver clenched in his fist," Loiterstein said.
Police arrested him immediately, Loiterstein said.
Bahena-Arellano, who has two domestic battery convictions, said nothing during the hearing before Cook County Judge Joel Greenblatt, who expressed shock at Bahena-Arellano's "cowardly, heartless, callous action" that "ruined so many families."
"I can't imagine her fear," he said, while two of Quintero-Montoya's sisters nodded in agreement. "Three children are left without their mother because of you. You'll have to live with that for the rest of your days and you'll have 30 years to think about what you did."
Bahena-Arellano received credit for 764 days in custody.