Aurora man pleads guilty to murdering his mother

An Aurora man with a history of mental health behavioral issues pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering his mother.

Abel Quinones-Herstad, 23, accepted a sentence of 38 years in prison for killing Edith Gonzalez-Alarcon, 55. He did so despite the advice of his attorney, who recommended not taking the deal.

Quinones-Herstad was living with Gonzalez-Alarcon, his biological mother, when he stabbed her 26 times, the evening of July 15, 2022.

The next day, police who were responding to a request to check on the welfare of Gonzalez-Alarcon found her body stuffed inside a bedroom closet, covered with a blanket. Two knives were found — one under a pillow, another under a carpet in the living room, where the stabbing took place.

Quinones-Herstad had fled to his brother’s residence in Wisconsin, then to a drugstore. At the store, he was heard telling someone that he could not go back to Illinois “because he had done something bad, he had killed his mom,” a prosecutor told Judge John Barsanti Tuesday.

His adoptive mother, Tammy Herstad, spoke at the hearing Tuesday. She said Quinones-Herstad had long been troubled.

According to Herstad, he had been hospitalized more than 40 times for mental-health crises. She had taken Quinones-Herstad in when he was about 10, and worked closely with Gonzalez-Alarcon.

But Quinones-Herstad turned her home into a “place of constant crisis,” she said.

Herstad said he was charming, but manipulative, and stole items, damaged property and was aggressive. He was in weekly therapy, and Herstad tried to get him into a residential treatment center as a teen, “but nobody would admit him,” she said.

She said she feared there would be a tragic outcome.

“I am deeply afraid of what could happen if he would ever be released,” she told Barsanti.

Quinones-Herstad’s biological sister submitted a written victim impact statement that the prosecutor read aloud. In it, she wrote that Quinones-Herstad took advantage of every person who tried to help him. “In the end, the person she (Gonzalez-Alarcon) loved and protected the most took her life,” the sister said.

“I do not believe he can live safely in the world.”

Quinones-Herstad will have to serve 100% of his sentence before being eligible for parole. He received credit for the more than three years he has spent in jail and in a state mental-health hospital awaiting trial.