Estrella Carrera’s relatives called police after she missed plans with her children, leading officers to a crime scene and an international manhunt.
BURBANK, Ill. — The first sign that something was wrong came when Estrella Carrera did not arrive to pick up her children after what should have been a weekend of celebration.
Carrera, a 26-year-old mother of two, had married Arnoldo Jimenez at Chicago City Hall on May 11, 2012. Relatives expected her to return for her young son and daughter after the newlyweds celebrated with family and friends. When she failed to appear and could not be reached, her family contacted authorities. Burbank police conducted a welfare check on May 13 and found Carrera dead in the bathtub of her apartment. Nearly 14 years later, Jimenez has been returned to the Chicago area to face a first-degree murder charge in her death.
The missed pickup shaped the earliest hours of the investigation. Carrera’s family knew where she was supposed to be and recognized that her silence was unusual. Their request gave police a reason to enter the home, where officers found her still wearing the sequined dress she had worn during the wedding celebration. Authorities said she had been stabbed multiple times. The FBI later said she had suffered 18 stab wounds. Her death was classified as a homicide, turning a family’s concern about an unexplained absence into a major criminal investigation.
The welfare check also fixed a critical point in the timeline. Carrera had been seen during the celebration after the civil ceremony, and she was expected to resume her responsibilities as a parent soon afterward. Investigators said the couple left the reception in Jimenez’s black 2006 Maserati during the early morning hours of May 12. The FBI and Burbank police allege that an argument began inside the car and that Jimenez attacked Carrera there. Officials believe her body was then taken into the apartment and placed in the bathtub.
That reconstruction came from several forms of evidence rather than from a single witness account. Police eventually recovered the Maserati from a Chicago residence associated with Jimenez’s brother. Investigators reported finding bloodstains, shattered glass and broken jewelry inside. Authorities said testing connected blood in the vehicle to Carrera and supported the theory that she had been injured in the car. The state will still have to establish the chain of custody, reliability and meaning of that evidence if the case reaches trial, and Jimenez’s defense may dispute the prosecution’s interpretation.
Investigators were also gathering statements about Jimenez’s actions after the wedding. Authorities said he contacted friends on May 13 and spoke about a physical altercation with Carrera. According to accounts later reported by Chicago-area news organizations, one person became concerned by what Jimenez described and contacted Carrera’s relatives or police. Another family member told investigators that Jimenez had spoken of a serious fight and said Carrera was bleeding. No jury has heard those witnesses, and their reported accounts remain allegations in an unresolved criminal case.
By the time officers found Carrera, Jimenez was no longer in the immediate area. Police said acquaintances heard that he might surrender, but cellphone records showed movement away from Chicago. Investigators tracked the phone south through Illinois and other states toward Texas before the signal ended near the Mexican border. The abrupt trip became a major part of the flight investigation. Authorities believed Jimenez entered Mexico and used family or community connections to remain outside the United States.
A Cook County court charged Jimenez with first-degree murder and issued a state arrest warrant on May 15, 2012. Two days later, a federal warrant was issued after he was charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. The state case addressed Carrera’s killing, while the federal charge allowed the FBI to pursue a suspect believed to have crossed state and national boundaries. The warrants remained active as local detectives and federal agents followed leads that stretched far beyond the Burbank apartment where the case began.
For Carrera’s relatives, the criminal process largely stopped before it could begin. A murder charge had been filed, but the defendant was absent. There could be no ordinary sequence of local hearings, evidence disputes and trial preparation while Jimenez remained outside the country. The investigation instead became a fugitive case, requiring authorities to keep the underlying evidence intact while searching for a man whose appearance, location and identity documents could change over time.
The FBI increased public attention to the case in May 2019 by placing Jimenez on its Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. He was the 522nd person added to the program. Agents published photographs, physical descriptions, aliases and possible locations in Mexico. They said he might have ties to Durango and could travel in other parts of the country. The bureau also highlighted the timing of Carrera’s death — less than 48 hours after the marriage — because it was one of the clearest identifying features of the case.
The reward rose to as much as $250,000 in 2023. Federal officials hoped the larger amount and renewed publicity would reach someone who knew where Jimenez was living. The FBI continued coordinating with Burbank police and authorities in Mexico. Officials have not publicly explained whether the decisive information came from a reward tip, long-term surveillance, records analysis or another investigative method. They have also not said whether anyone received or applied for the reward.
Mexican federal agents, working with Interpol and U.S. authorities, arrested Jimenez in Monterrey on Jan. 30, 2025. The FBI said he was taken into custody without incident. The operation involved the bureau’s Chicago and San Antonio offices, its legal attaché in Mexico City and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, along with Mexico’s Fiscalía General de la República. His arrest ended the search but did not immediately place him before a Cook County judge because the process for returning him from Mexico still had to be completed.
Jimenez remained in Mexican custody while extradition proceedings moved forward. On June 18, 2026, the FBI announced that he had been brought back to the Chicago area. Local reports said he was held without bond pending further court action. The transfer changed the case from a search for an absent suspect into an active prosecution in which lawyers can address evidence, witnesses and pretrial issues. It also gave Carrera’s family the first opportunity in more than a decade to follow a local court case involving the man accused of killing her.
The years between the welfare check and Jimenez’s return may present difficulties for both sides. Witnesses must recall events from 2012, and prosecutors may need to explain how evidence was collected, stored and tested across a long period. Defense attorneys can challenge those procedures and question whether memories have changed. Prosecutors, however, began gathering physical evidence and statements within days of Carrera’s death, and the original warrants preserved the state’s accusation while Jimenez remained a fugitive.
Carrera’s role as a mother remains central to how the case was discovered. Her relatives did not find her because of a broad police search or a random emergency call. They noticed she had failed to do something expected: return for her children. That concern led officers to her apartment, established the discovery date and started the investigation. The later international operation depended on federal resources, foreign cooperation and public notices, but the first intervention came from family members who recognized her absence.
Jimenez is presumed innocent unless proven guilty. The latest reliable public accounts reviewed for this article did not provide a plea, trial date or final ruling in the Cook County case. The prosecution now moves under ordinary court rules after an extraordinary delay, with Carrera’s family waiting to see whether evidence collected in 2012 can finally be presented and tested before a judge or jury.
Author note: Last updated July 20, 2026.