'If I Can't Have You No One Will'

As he choked the life out of his wife, Cesar Garcia told her, “If I can’t have you no one will,” a prosecutor said during the Crest Hill man’s bond hearing Thursday.

Garcia, 27, then put the dead body of his 22-year-old wife, Laura Gonzalez, in bed, said Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Christopher Messina. Garcia got in bed with the body and drank and took pills, hoping to kill himself, Messina said. He was unsuccessful.

When the police got into Gonzalez’s Marlboro Lane home Tuesday night with a key provided by a neighbor, Garcia was still very much alive, although incoherent and in a “drug-induced stupor,” a source said.

Gonzalez’s sister, Guadalupe Garcia, said her family called the police because Gonzalez was not answering her phone.

“My mom was calling and they weren’t answering the phone and they always answered the phone for her,” Guadalupe Garcia said.

Cesar Garcia was taken to Presence St. Joseph Medical Center and then to the Will County jail. He faces charges of first-degree murder and a possible life sentence if he is found guilty.

Cesar Garcia confessed to strangling Gonzalez, Messina said. Judge Cory Lund set Cesar Garcia’s bond at $10 million.

Cesar Garcia was locked up for allegedly battering Gonzalez just two months ago. His sister, Claudia Tapia, posted his $500 bond two days after he was jailed.

“They were husband and wife,” Tapia said. “They were always together.”

As a condition of his bond, Cesar Garcia was supposed to stay at least 1,000 feet away from Gonzalez and their Marlboro Lane home.

Guadalupe Garcia said her family was unsure of the nature of her sister’s relationship with her husband, or why he was back in the house he was forbidden to be near.

“We really don’t know because they wouldn’t tell us,” she said.

“We don’t know,” she said. “We just know that she’s gone.”