CHICAGO _ The biological father charged with killing his young son re-enacted how he slit the boy's throat as he gave a video confession to Chicago police, Cook County prosecutors said Friday.
The details were so gruesome that a court clerk wiped away tears as she listened in the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Rolando Ortiz, 37, wearing a flimsy blue jumpsuit with his hands cuffed in front of him, was ordered held without bail by Judge Mary Marubio as a public safety threat to the community.
Ortiz's son, Mateo Garcia Aguayo, who would have turned 3 next month, was cut so severely that his spinal cord was severed and his head was nearly decapitated, prosecutors said.
In a recorded interview with Chicago police, Ortiz admitted he killed the boy "because he was trying to sleep and the victim was not letting him," said Assistant State's Attorney Jamie Santini. He told police he knelt on the boy to hold him down while cutting his throat, Santini said. He admitted he put the body in a garbage bag, intending to throw it in the garbage, according to the prosecutors.
Ortiz even re-enacted the slaying on video, using a doll to show how he slashed the boy's throat, Santini said.
Ortiz, who worked a night shift at a factory, cared for Mateo while his wife worked days at the same factory and their two older children attended school.
Ortiz brought Mateo into bed with him to try to sleep, but the toddler wouldn't stop moving and jumping on his father, Santini said.
When the boy got off the bed and started running around, Ortiz grabbed him by the arm, dragged him to the kitchen and pinned him to the floor so he could not move, Santini said. Ortiz then got a large kitchen knife and used it to slash his son's throat repeatedly while he held the boy down with his other arm, he said.
He then placed the boy's body in a garbage bag and wiped blood off the kitchen floor with dirty clothes, Santini said.
He called a witness _ identified by police as his wife's sister _ and admitted to her that he killed his son, telling her that the boy "was with God now," Santini said. Two other witnesses then went to the residence, found the body and called 911.
When Ortiz heard the approaching sirens, he fled the apartment in a truck, Santini said. Chicago police tracked his cellphone to a location in Kankakee and arrested him within a few hours of the homicide.
It marked his first arrest by Chicago police.
At a news conference Thursday, Chicago police said Ortiz "made a pretty weak attempt" to cut his own wrists after realizing what he had done.
"Mateo wasn't old enough to make a bad decision. Mateo wasn't old enough to take the wrong path in life," Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told reporters. "He was just an innocent kid whose trust and safety was betrayed by one man he should never have to question: his father."
Ortiz's court-appointed lawyer said his client has lived in Chicago for 14 years and worked at the factory for six years. The family lives in the Little Village neighborhood.
