The third suspect in a grisly Southwest Side murder is being held in New Jersey awaiting extradition to Chicago, sources said Monday.
Milton Miranda has been held since Saturday in the Morris County Jail in Morristown, N.J., according to jail officials. He is wanted on a murder warrant issued by Chicago Police. The circumstances surrounding his arrest remain unclear.
Police believe he killed Jose Reyes and dismembered his body in May.
Reyes was the brother of a former boyfriend of Daisy Gutierrez, who is charged in the murder along with her father, Salvador Gutierrez.
Miranda is Daisy Gutierrez’s current boyfriend, authorities said.
Daisy Gutierrez told her family to leave their Southwest Side home on May 21, according to prosecutors. She invited Jose Reyes to come over.
Gutierrez lured Reyes to her room and began to undress — all while her boyfriend lay in wait.
And that’s when the horror began to unfold inside the single-story home in Chicago’s Scottsdale neighborhood, leading prosecutors to charge Gutierrez on Sunday with murder.
Her father, 56-year-old Salvador Gutierrez, is charged with concealing a homicide for allegedly watching while Reyes’ body was dismembered and for allegedly helping bury the remains.
Chicago Police believe a love triangle was at the center of the violence at the home in the 8300 block of South Scottsdale, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.
A prosecutor said Daisy Gutierrez had children with Reyes’ brother. Children’s toys could be seen Sunday behind the home, which was wrapped with police tape.
Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Heather Kent said Reyes, 28, had expressed his own interest in Daisy Gutierrez and had been calling her cellphone. (According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, Reyes was 19.)
So on May 21, while Daisy Gutierrez was undressing in front of Reyes in her bedroom, Kent said, the boyfriend kicked in the door and pounced on Reyes.
The boyfriend attacked Reyes with a pipe and a knife, slitting Reyes’ throat in front of Gutierrez and decapitating him, Kent said.
When it was done, Gutierrez called her father and told him she had “fixed the problem,” Kent said. Her father came home, and they allegedly convinced
him to help get rid of the body.
Salvador Gutierrez watched while his daughter’s boyfriend dismembered Reyes, Kent said. Then Salvador Gutierrez spent three hours digging a hole in the backyard and helped bury the remains in plastic bags, Kent said.
Daisy Gutierrez and her father were arrested in Chicago. Reyes’ remains were found around 1:20 p.m. Friday, and an autopsy determined his death was caused by “multiple sharp force injuries” and “assault,” according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
Daisy Gutierrez, pregnant and dressed in a dark hoodie, stood Sunday in a courtroom near her father, who busses tables at an Oak Lawn restaurant. and was a busboy dressed in a white shirt. Records show he was arrested Friday at the restaurant where he works in Oak Lawn.
Both listened calmly as Kent outlined the macabre crime to Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil, telling the judge that Daisy Gutierrez and her father admitted their roles in Reyes’ death.
The judge set Daisy Gutierrez’s bond at $2 million and her father’s at $500,000.
-Sun-Times and Sun-Times Media Wire
Daisy Gutierrez
Salvador Gutierrez