A murder charge was filed Wednesday against a 25-year-old Santa Ana man accused of killing his wife while out on bail on charges of raping her last year.
Fernando Jaramillo Llamas is charged with murder and leading police on a chase, with sentencing enhancement allegations of committing a crime while out on bail, along with misdemeanor counts of disobeying a domestic relations court order and child abuse and endangerment.
Llamas was charged with raping and sodomizing his wife on May 21 of last year, along with two counts of criminal threats and one count each of dissuading a witness by force and smuggling methamphetamine into jail, according to court records. He had been due in court on those charges on June 25 and was out of custody on $250,000 bail posted last October.
Though he'd been ordered to stay away from the victim, they were living together when 26-year-old Maria Teresa Murillo Rojas' body was found in their apartment at 1021 S. Standard Ave. by family members about 7 a.m. last Friday, according to Santa Ana police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna.
Llamas and Rojas lived in the apartment with their 20-month-old daughter and extended family, according to police, who did not release the cause of her death.
The suspect was not at the scene when detectives arrived at the apartment, according to Bertagna. He said that just after 9 a.m., other officers responded to an attempted suicide report at Aluminum Precision Metals at 523 E. Alton Ave., where Llamas was last known to work.
When officers arrived, they saw Llamas drive off in a black Volkswagen Passat, which was spotted just before 11:15 a.m. at Grand Avenue and the Santa Ana (5) Freeway. Officers tried to make a traffic stop, but Llamas refused to pull over, triggering a pursuit that ended when he crashed the sedan at Grand Avenue and Dyer Road and tried in vain to escape on foot, Bertagna said.
