Police suspect girl, 12, was killed by mother's ex-boyfriend after 911 call

Chicago police suspect that a 12-year-old girl was stabbed and beaten to death by her mother's ex-boyfriend after the mother called 911 to get him to leave her North Side apartment.The ex-boyfriend, released from prison in April after being convicted of trying to strangle a woman, was arrested about six hours after the attack Sunday night in Uptown's Sheridan Park neighborhood. No charges have been announced.

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Alexis Stubbs was attacked around 9:45 p.m. in the 4600 block of North Beacon Street, where she lived with her mother, according to police.

The suspect had been at the apartment most of the day Sunday, and the mother called 911 in the evening because she wanted him to leave, according to a law enforcement source, citing preliminary information.

The mother and Alexis left the apartment as the mother called police and waited for officers, the source said. But the daughter went back into the building to talk to a neighbor, the source said.

Shortly afterward, the mother heard screams and rushed back into the building and found her daughter on the floor with stab wounds, the source said. The suspect fled but was found in a portable toilet nearby after police tracked his cellphone.

Neighbors said the girl and her mother had been inseparable.

"They was like Siamese twins, you know, you didn't see them apart," said Reggie Taylor, a maintenance worker who knew the girl most of her life. "She really, she really took care of her baby.

"When she was young, 3 years old ... she looked like a little Shirley Temple. Little curls, little chubby girl, very happy all the time," Taylor said. “She was a sweet little kid, she was a sweet girl, a sweet girl."

Alexis attended the Mary E. Courtenay Language Arts Center, down the street from her home, according to Andrew Holmes, a community activist who often provides support to the families of homicide victims.

A representative who answered the phone at the school said Alexis was a fifth-grader and called her death a “tragedy,” but declined to further comment.

The suspect being held by police is 31 and has a long criminal record that includes domestic battery and resisting arrest, according to court records.

He was released from Menard Correctional Center in early April after serving part of a three-year sentence for aggravated domestic battery by strangling.

Police said he attacked a woman in August 2014, choking her with his hands, grabbing her and shoving her against a closet. "I will go to jail for you," he told her, according to police. "I will kill for you."

The woman waited to call police until she could leave their apartment, and he was arrested later that day, police said. He was charged with four counts of domestic battery while having one or two prior convictions, unlawful restraint, aggravated battery by strangulation and aggravated domestic strangulation.

Cook County court records show he pleaded guilty in December 2014 and was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of supervised release. He was paroled April 4, 2017.

In June 2013, a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of aggravated assault of a police officer and resisting arrest. He pleaded guilty and was given one year of probation.

Prosecutors alleged he violated terms of his probation and he was taken back into custody and eventually made bail. In January 2014, he was sentenced to 10 days in jail and was given credit for time served.

In August 2012, he pleaded guilty in a domestic violence case and was sentenced to 21 days in jail. He was given credit for 18 days time served.

A few months later, in November of 2012, he was detained in another domestic violence case, but the complaining witness didn't show up in court and the case was dropped.