Man charged with killing Aurora mother of his child in cold case from 19 years ago
An earlier version named the wrong judge.
Nineteen years after Aurora resident Tyesha Bell disappeared, the father of one of her children has been charged with killing her.
Bail was set at $5 million Tuesday for Prince L. Cunningham after a grand jury indicted the 49-year-old on charges of first-degree murder.
Bell disappeared on May 10, 2003, after stepping outside the Randall Road apartment she shared with her sister to take a phone call. She left a television set on and candles burning. She had left her two children with relatives, police said.
Cunningham, of the 500 block of Powers Court in Yorkville, is the father of Bell's daughter, who was nearly 2 years old when Bell went missing.
A surveyor found Bell's skull in December 2020 in a field that was being developed in Montgomery, according to a news release from the Kane County state's attorney's office. Authorities determined it had been there for 10 to 15 years and was that of a young female.
A DNA sample was extracted and matched to one on file with the police.
Additional remains later were found.
Authorities said Bell died of a gunshot wound.
At a March 2021 news conference, Aurora police investigations bureau chief Josh Fichtel said the case frustrated detectives over the years because they believed people had information about it but would not come forward.
Cunningham was arrested by U.S. marshals. He appeared during the Wednesday morning bond call in Kane County, where Judge William Parkhurst kept the bail amount.
In response to standard questions, Cunningham said he is married, has five adult children and that he was fired Tuesday from his job at a pest-control company.
His next court date is June 24.
"This has been a long and painful 19 years for Tyesha Bell's family and friends, not knowing what happened to her, and then learning she had been killed," Kane County State's Attorney Jamie Mosser said in the news release. "Although the outcome of finding Tyesha's body is not what we had hoped for, we are grateful that we can charge Mr. Cunningham for his criminal actions and bring him to justice."