Westmont man sentenced to 25 years for wife's murder
Ian Alamilla says he was looking forward to spending time with his estranged wife and their three children when he went to her Westmont home in April 2010 for a “family movie night.”
The 35-year-old Belize native said during his Thursday sentencing hearing that he never intended the chain of events that resulted in him strangling Tara Alamilla, 34, on the early morning of their daughter's 5th birthday, as the child and two older siblings slept in another part of the home.
“My actions make no sense,” said Ian Alamilla, adding that he was “deeply” sorry. “All I wanted was for my wife to be happy.”
A DuPage County judge took Alamilla's remorse and several other mitigating factors into account before sentencing him to 25 years in prison.
“This murder was not premeditated,” Judge Kathryn Creswell said before imposing the sentence. “This was a crime motivated by rage.”
The judge mentioned how Alamilla, who had no known criminal history, decided in October to plead guilty instead of having a trial. Alamilla also turned himself in to police hours after the murder.
A distraught Alamilla walked into a Chicago police station shortly before 5:30 a.m. April 10, 2010, and told officers he'd had a domestic dispute with his wife at her home on the 300 block of Park Street in Westmont.
Westmont police went to the home about 5:40 a.m. and found Tara Alamilla dead in a basement bedroom. Her clothed body was under a comforter in a bed. The three children — ages 11, 6 and 5 at the time of the slaying — were unharmed upstairs and didn't witness the violence.
Tara Alamilla filed for divorce a month before she was killed. But she let Ian Alamilla come over on April 9, 2010, for a “family movie night” and to discuss their daughter's party.
After watching a movie, the children went to bed while their parents stayed up to see a Jay Leno segment featuring an animal from Brookfield Zoo, where Tara Alamilla worked as a school program coordinator for the Chicago Zoological Society.
“I never went there with any intention to hurt her,” Ian Alamilla said.
At some point, Alamilla got into an argument with his estranged wife and choked her to death. “I lost control,” he said.
After the murder, Alamilla went to a home in Woodridge where he moved in with a couple after his wife filed for divorce. As he was packing his things, he told a roommate that “she would not see him again,” a police witness testified Thursday.
Alamilla also phoned Belize and admitted to his brother that he murdered his wife and wanted to kill himself. The brother encouraged Alamilla to go to the police.
During Thursday's hearing, Tara Alamilla's father described her as “a mother whose love, tenderness and support was cherished by her children.”
“April 10, 2010, will always be the dividing point between the vibrant and promising world of the past and a present world of death, emptiness, and longing,” said Alan Feldman of Oak Brook, who has been caring for the three children.
Prosecutor Ann Celine O'Hallaren said Ian Alamilla “took away the life of someone who gave back.”
“He choked the mother of his own children with his own hands because of his selfishness,” said O'Hallaren, adding that the defendant was upset about losing the financial support of his wife and her family.
After the sentencing, DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin issued a statement saying that Ian Alamilla will wake up every morning in a cell for the next 25 years “knowing he is responsible for the murder of his wife, Tara.”