Friends knew where Eliana Bigoni’s phone was after she stopped responding, helping turn a missed breakfast into an urgent police welfare check.
PLANO, Texas — Eliana Bigoni had given people close to her a simple digital safeguard: access to the location of her cellphone. On the morning of Aug. 12, that routine location-sharing became a crucial clue when she stopped responding and her phone remained at the apartment of the husband from whom she was separated.
Hours later, Plano police found the 34-year-old mother dead in the trunk of a Hyundai Genesis in the garage at The Parker Apartments, according to an arrest affidavit. Her husband, Jake O’Brien Bigoni, 37, was arrested and now faces charges of murder and abuse of a corpse without legal authority. Police say Eliana Bigoni had come to the apartment to collect the couple’s two children for school. Bigoni has been accused, not convicted, and the public records reviewed for this report do not establish a motive.
The location data mattered because it gave Eliana Bigoni’s friends and relatives something more concrete than an unanswered telephone. A witness told police the two had spoken for about six minutes beginning at 7:17 a.m. that morning. Bigoni was also expected at an 8:30 a.m. breakfast. When she failed to appear and could not be reached, the witness checked the shared location and saw that the phone appeared to remain at the apartment complex on Charles Place, according to the affidavit.
That was unusual because her visit was supposed to be brief. The affidavit says Eliana Bigoni had gone to pick up her children, ages 2 and 5, so they could go to school. A witness estimated that the handoff should have taken only 10 to 15 minutes. At about 8:35 a.m., however, the phone still appeared to be at The Parker Apartments. As the morning continued with no response, a routine delay increasingly looked like a possible emergency.
The witness’s concern was heightened by the couple’s circumstances. Eliana and Jake Bigoni were separated and going through a divorce, according to the affidavit and police accounts. Local reporting said officers were also provided information about potential family-violence concerns. Those details did not establish that a crime had occurred, but they gave police additional context when the caller asked for a welfare check because family and friends could not reach Eliana Bigoni.
Plano police recorded the dispatch at 10:23 a.m. The department later described it publicly as a welfare concern regarding potential family violence in the 4700 block of Charles Place. At that moment, officers did not announce that they were responding to a confirmed homicide. Their immediate task was to determine whether the missing woman was safe and why her phone appeared to have remained at the same location for hours.
When officers contacted Jake Bigoni, he acknowledged that his estranged wife had visited earlier, according to the affidavit. He said she had come for one of the children but that the child was not feeling well. He also told officers that he did not know where she was at that point. As they spoke, two officers noticed a large wet area on his shirt, the affidavit says. The observation was noted but did not by itself explain where Eliana Bigoni had gone.
Police returned to the door to ask additional questions, including whether Eliana Bigoni had driven to the complex. In the garage they saw a white Hyundai Genesis, according to the affidavit. When officers asked about the wet area on his shirt, Jake Bigoni told them he had been cleaning the house. He again acknowledged having seen his wife that morning. The officers then went back to their patrol vehicle, where the information arriving from outside the apartment became increasingly alarming.
Dispatch notes indicated that someone might have been hurt or killed, according to the affidavit. A separate update said a son had reported that his mother was dead. Police contacted Jake Bigoni’s mother and asked about a conversation she had recently had with him. Her account directly contradicted the uncertainty he had expressed to the officers at his apartment.
His mother said Jake Bigoni called her at roughly 10:15 a.m. and told her, “I have something to tell you. She’s dead,” according to the affidavit. She also reported that he said the couple had been in a fight. That account became more significant because it came only minutes before police arrived and because Bigoni had subsequently told the responding officers that he did not know where his wife was.
Officers returned to the apartment at about 10:46 a.m. and detained Jake Bigoni. According to the affidavit, he continued to say he did not know where Eliana was. Police asked why he would have told his mother she was dead. As that exchange unfolded, officers said they also noticed that the previously wet area on his shirt had dried into a darker reddish-brown mark. Taken together with the report from his mother and the possibility that Eliana Bigoni could still need medical help, officers entered the apartment for what they described as an emergency sweep.
The search ended in the garage. Police found Eliana Bigoni in the trunk of the Hyundai, unresponsive and not breathing, according to the affidavit. Officers reported evidence of blood in the residence and described injuries to her head and face. Those observations are part of the prosecution’s probable cause narrative. The public reports reviewed for this article do not provide a final autopsy determination, and no precise medical cause of death should be inferred beyond what authorities have formally released.
The cellphone location that initially focused concern on the apartment had therefore pointed friends and police to the same place where investigators eventually found Bigoni’s body. Yet the technology did not reveal what was happening inside. It could show that a device remained at a location; it could not establish who possessed it, whether its owner was safe or why messages went unanswered. Those unanswered questions had to be addressed by witnesses, officers and the physical evidence described in the affidavit.
The couple’s two children were in the residence when officers arrived, according to local reporting. Police removed them after discovering their mother. Authorities have not publicly provided a detailed statement from the children, and the information currently available does not support speculation about what they witnessed. Their ages and the seriousness of the case make restraint especially important when describing their role in events surrounding the investigation.
Jake Bigoni was first arrested on suspicion of abuse of a corpse without legal authority. Plano police announced the next day that detectives had obtained an arrest warrant charging him with murder. The department identified Eliana Bigoni as his 34-year-old wife and said the investigation remained with its Crimes Against Persons Unit. Jail-based reporting subsequently listed both allegations against him.
Eliana Bigoni’s family later remembered her in terms that bear little resemblance to the terse language of the affidavit. Funeral information says she was born in Bogotá, Colombia, and was the mother of two young sons. Friends described her as intelligent, hardworking and warm, with a strong affection for family and animals. A Houston visitation was held in September, with arrangements announced for her remains to be transferred to Colombia.
More than a month after her death, the central criminal allegation remains that Jake Bigoni killed his estranged wife during the morning she arrived to collect their children. Investigators have disclosed pieces of the timeline through the arrest affidavit, but important matters — including motive and any final forensic findings — have not been established in the reliable public materials reviewed here. Bigoni is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless prosecutors prove the charges against him in court.
Author note: Last updated Sept. 22, 2026.