Inset: Abel Quinones-Herstad (Kane County State's Attorney's Office). Background: A section of Jackson Place in Aurora, Illinois (Google Maps).
A man in Illinois has learned his fate for fatally stabbing his mother 26 times in a "brutal and heinous crime" and then admitting it to his brother.
Abel Quinones-Herstad, 23, has been sentenced to 38 years in prison after pleading guilty to the first-degree murder of his mother, the Kane County State's Attorney's Office announced.
The defendant was just 20 years old when he killed 55-year-old Edith Gonzalez-Alarcon on July 14, 2022.
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On that day, Quinones-Herstad stabbed his mother 26 times at her home on Jackson Place in Aurora, killing her. He is then believed to have placed her body in a closet of the home and hid a knife beneath a rug in the living room.
The now-condemned defendant then traveled north across the border to Wisconsin, where his brother lived. Once there, he "stated that he had done something bad to their mother and could not go back," according to police.
The Aurora Police Department was asked to conduct a welfare check at Gonzalez-Alarcon's home, and the morning after the killing, they found the woman's body. An autopsy confirmed she died from multiple stab wounds. Quinones-Herstad — who was still in Wisconsin — was eventually detained by the West Allis Police Department.
"This was a brutal and heinous crime that forever altered the lives of everyone involved," said Assistant State's Attorney Christine Bayer. "We acknowledge the family's extraordinary bravery and strength. While this sentence brings accountability, we recognize that they will never fully heal from this loss."
Quinones-Herstad must serve his full nearly-40-year sentence. He did, however, receive credit for 1,243 days served in the Kane County jail.
