CHICAGO — A Chicago man beat his girlfriend to death inside his Rogers Park apartment on Monday, possibly because she used $80 of his money to buy unprescribed Xanax pills, prosecutors said. Judge Susana Ortiz held Fostelle Hymon, 26, without bail during a bond hearing on Wednesday afternoon.
Hymon called 911 at 5:48 p.m. Monday and reported that his girlfriend appeared to be overdosing in his apartment on the 1700 block of West Estes, officials said. Police officers found her dead on the couch and quickly suspected that she had been murdered.
Investigators determined that Hymon’s 41-year-old girlfriend arranged to meet someone to buy the Xanax very early Monday, and she transferred money from his CashApp to hers so she could pay for it, prosecutor Anne McCord said during the hearing.
Surveillance video showed her leaving Hymon’s apartment at 1:40 a.m. on Monday to make the purchase and returning about 30 minutes later. According to McCord, the video shows that Hymon was the only person who entered or left the apartment between the time she returned and the time Hymon dialed 911.
According to McCord, Hymon’s neighbor reported hearing a man’s voice repeatedly yelling, “Where’s my money?” and loud stomping and banging noises Monday between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Building surveillance cameras captured Hymon leaving his apartment with blankets, a comforter, jeans, and other items and washing them in the building’s laundry room shortly before 1 p.m., according to McCord. Later, she said, he could be seen cleaning the washer and dryer themselves.
“I clean the whole building,” Hymon interjected before his defense attorney advised him against speaking out.
In fact, Hymon is a part-time maintenance worker for the building, McCord acknowledged. She said video showed him taking rubber gloves, a towel, spray containers, and a plastic bag from a maintenance closet to his apartment.
A black garbage bag that Hymon tossed down a trash chute contained a shirt with suspected blood stains, according to McCord. Possible blood stains were also discovered near the couch where the woman’s body was found, on a bathroom counter and sink, on a living room wall, and on an air conditioning unit. DNA testing of those materials is currently underway, according to McCord.
Chicago cops took Hymon into custody for questioning Monday evening. During an interview, he told officers that he slapped Hymon and told them she hit her head on the air conditioning unit, McCord alleged.
But the medical examiner determined that the woman suffered extensive injuries in a violent assault, including broken ribs, a fractured larynx and hyoid bone, contusions across her face and body, and lacerations of her liver, kidney, and spleen.
Hymon has no criminal background, McCord said. He is charged with two variations of first-degree murder.