Police in suburban Chicago say a legal permanent resident from Mexico killed a woman who lived in his apartment complex hours before she was to attend an Easter Sunday church service.
Bulmaro Mejia-Maya, a 29-year-old construction worker with a violent criminal history, was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated criminal sexual assault and home invasion, Schaumburg police announced during a news conference Thursday.
Mejia was arrested Tuesday by the U.S. Marshals Service in Jacksonville, Florida, where police say he had fled after allegedly strangling Tiffany Thrasher, a 33-year-old mortgage loan originator for PNC Bank. He waived extradition and will be transferred back to Cook County some time before May 4, local newspaper The Daily Herald reported.
Meija has a criminal record in several states, according to court records reviewed by the Daily Herald. He was arrested in May 2012 for stabbing a man during a fight at a house party near Orlando. He was charged with felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon but eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery.
Meija is also the subject of an active arrest warrant in Utah for failing to appear in court after a May 2016 arrest on misdemeanor drug charges, the Daily Herald said.
Police records show that Meija, a Mexican citizen, had a green card when he was arrested in Florida in 2012. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services declined to provide The Daily Caller News Foundation with information about Meija’s current residency status, citing agency privacy policy.
Schaumburg police spokeswoman Sgt. Christy Lindhurst said Friday that federal immigration authorities have not shared details about Meija’s immigration status with Schaumburg police.
“We don’t have anything on that,” Lindhurst told TheDCNF.
According to Section 8 of the U.S. Code, which governs immigration law, a legal permanent resident may be deported if he is convicted of a single aggravated felony or two or more crimes involving “moral turpitude.”
Schaumburg police said they discovered Thrasher’s body Sunday after going to her apartment in response to a welfare check members of the Living Hope Church in nearby Elk Grove Village requested. Churchgoers had become concerned when Thrasher didn’t show up for Easter service. She was supposed to sing with the church choir.
Police believe Mejia entered Thrasher’s apartment through an unlocked ground-level window, the Daily Herald reported. It’s unclear whether he knew Thrasher before allegedly sexually assaulting and strangling her to death, but Lindhusrt said “it’s possible their paths may have crossed through the proximity of the buildings.”
One of Mejia’s neighbors said the suspect and his roommates frequently partied on the sidewalk outside the apartment building, where they would drink beer and listen to music well into the night.
“We haven’t seen them since Saturday,” Joe Person told the Daily Herald. “I thought it was weird. They were always out here. I didn’t like my [10-year-old] daughter walking by them when she took out the garbage, so I made her go around the building to stay away from them.”
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