Southwest Side woman dies after being beaten

By Admin on January 31, 2010

Sandra Viramontes, 30, died in her mother’s arms Sunday morning at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, weeks after a grisly beating police said was delivered at the hands of her husband.
 
Viramontes, of the 5700 block of South Rutherford Avenue in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood, leaves her two children, Luis Jr.,6, and Lindsey, 2, in the care of Estela Rincon, her mother.

“How do you tell a 6-year-old, ‘Your mother’s not coming back? ‘ ” Rincon asked. The children are “all I have left of my daughter.”
Viramontes was hospitalized Jan. 10 after being attacked by her
husband, Luis Viramontes, 31, in the Rutherford Avenue residence,
Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Laura Kubiak said.

Viramontes’ large family had been keeping vigil by her bedside since
she was taken to the hospital and was there when she passed away, said
Rincon. She said she had her daughter taken off life-support.

“I was with her,” Rincon said. “She died in my arms.”

Rincon said her daughter was bruised virtually from head to toe, with
blackened eyes and a swollen nose. Doctors told her family the injuries
to the young woman’s brain were not survivable so they decided to
withdraw life support, her mother said.

“She was badly beaten up,” Rincon said. Trauma physicians told the
family “they’d never seen anybody get a beating like that before,” she
said.

Luis Viramontes has been charged with aggravated domestic battery and
attempted murder, according to court records. He turned himself over to
police on Jan. 13, Kubiak said.

Luis Viramontes’ stepfather, Pablo Garcia, said the young man’s family
is having trouble reconciling the charges against him with what they
know about his personality.

“He’s always been real gentle,” Garcia said.

His stepson “couldn’t even sleep” after his wife was hospitalized,
crying nonstop, Garcia said. “We’re all feeling bad about it.”

But Rincon said the signs were building for months that something was awry in the Viramontes’ home.

Rincon said her son-in-law had begun isolating his wife from the
outside world, forcing Sandra to quit her job at Wal-Mart. Starting
last summer, her mother said, Luis began preventing her from
communicating with her family.

“He would not let me talk to her,” she said. “He would not let her come to my house.”

When Rincon would drop by her daughter’s house unexpectedly, she said
Luis would eavesdrop on conversations and cut visits short. Efforts to
intercede were fruitless, Rincon said.

“I kept telling her, leave him,” her mother said. But her daughter only
responded that she couldn’t. “She was scared of him. He just had to
stare at her and she would be scared.”

Events culminated the morning of Jan. 10, when Rincon said she got an
8:45 a.m. phone call from her son-in-law saying the two had fought
eight hours previously and that her daughter needed medical attention.

She arrived at the couples’ home 10 minutes later, she said, to find
her daughter lying in bed, barely breathing and unconscious. Luis was
not home, but Rincon said she yelled at a relative who was standing
close by, “staring” at her daughter.

“Call the ambulance!” she remembered shouting. “What are you standing there for?”

She rode with emergency medical technicians to the hospital and sat by
Sandra’s side, she said, but Luis Viramontes did not arrive until that
night. When he did, Rincon said, he told her that his mother, sister
and niece had cleaned the bedroom where Sandra had been lying
unconscious for an unknown length of time.

Rincon said she’s furious that it took so long to get care for her
bruised and bloodied daughter. “If (someone) would’ve called earlier,
she might have had a chance,” Rincon said doctors told her.

Rincon said her daughter, one of seven siblings, was a giving person
who adored her children, and that she and her husband had been
boyfriend and girlfriend since 8th grade. She said the two had a big
wedding in September.

“She made friends real easy,” Rincon said of her daughter. “She’s one of these people that likes to help other people.”

Officials said a decision on whether to upgrade charges in Sandra
Viramontes’ death won’t come until the medical examiner’s office has
ruled. An autopsy is scheduled for Monday, according to the Cook County
medical examiner’s office.

Viramontes appeared in bond court shortly after being charged and was
denied bond, according to court records. A request to reduce bond was
later granted on Jan. 20, in the amount of $500,000, with the proviso
that he wear an electronic monitoring device, according to Sandra
Viramontes’ family. Court records indicate he posted bond.

Police confirmed that Viramontes was in custody today.

Rincon said she hopes justice will be served in the case but is still haunted by what could have been done.

“I think this could have all been prevented,” she said.

Georgia Garvey, Carlos Sadovi, and  Deanese Williams-Harris

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