Hector Rivera / Photo from Chicago Police
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN
Chicago Sun-Times
A convicted felon who allegedly stabbed his caretaker girlfriend to death in Albany Park last week was ordered held without bond Tuesday.
Hector Rivera stabbed Erendira Pimentel-Hernandez 22 times with his steak knife during an arguing in a stairwell near where she was working in the 4700 block of North Lawndale Avenue, said Assistant State’s Attorney Glen Runk.
A man who heard the screaming from his apartment Wednesday confronted the 55-year-old Rivera when he saw him standing over Pimentel-Hernandez as she sat on the stairs, Runk said.
Rivera allegedly ran away, leaving 38-year-old Pimentel-Hernandez bleeding as the witness came to her aid.
When Rivera left from the back of the building, he told another witness that if she’d call police, she would be next, Runk said.
That woman took down the license plate number on Rivera’s pickup truck as he drove away and the went to help Pimentel-Hernandez, Runk said.
Officers later came to Rivera’s home in the 3100 block of North Kimball Avenue.
But he ran away from the back, hid and eventually fled to Indiana on an Amtrak train, Runk said.
Rivera was arrested when he came back to Chicago the next day.
The steak knife recovered from the scene matches the knives from a butcher’s block in Rivera’s house, Runk said.
Rivera allegedly admitted that he had stabbed Pimentel-Hernandez.
Rivera, a factory worker, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1989 for attempted murder, armed robbery, aggravated battery and armed violence.
Pimentel-Hernandez was a home health care worker who enjoyed cooking an traveling, according to her Facebook page.