CHICAGO _ A parolee has been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of a Chicago mother who has been missing since March, Chicago police said Wednesday.
Cook County prosecutors said Chaunti Bryla, 43, had demanded that Marvin Bailey, 34, move out of her residence about two weeks earlier after she fought with Bailey's girlfriend.
Bryla had allowed Bailey to move in with her after he was paroled from prison, prosecutors said. She had known him for years after having a child with Bailey's father.
The charges mark a rare prosecution for murder when the victim's body has not been found.
In a front-page article in August, the Chicago Tribune, citing court records, detailed the suspicious circumstances surrounding Bryla's disappearance in March. Relatives last saw her alive on the morning of March 14.
Though the Tribune didn't name Bailey because he hadn't been charged at that point, the court records alleged that he was captured on video surveillance cameras removing a large blue bin from Bryla's apartment complex.
Additional footage showed Bailey moving the blue bin to various locations before leaving it near a dumpster at a South Side motel, police said.
Police said they recovered the blue bin and found DNA inside the bin that matched Bryla's. A police cadaver dog also reacted to the presence of the odor of human remains at the location where investigators located the bin, according to prosecutors.
But authorities were unable to find Bryla's remains during a search of an Indiana landfill _ the site where garbage from the dumpster at the South Side motel would have been discarded.
Prosecutors said Bailey made no admissions about Bryla's disappearance following his arrest Tuesday, but he offered no explanation when investigators repeatedly confronted him about the video showing him struggle _ despite the help of a second individual _ to carry the heavy blue bin.
Bryla's family told the Tribune in August that the mother of a 12-year-old son allowed Bailey to live with her after he was released from prison in November 2018. At the time of Bryla's disappearance, Bailey was still on parole. He was convicted of aggravated battery for hitting a girlfriend with a pipe and hammer, pouring a caustic substance on her and setting her on fire, court records showed.
At a bond hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Wednesday afternoon, Judge Charles Beach II denied bail for Bailey.
Dressed in street clothes, Bailey held his hands clasped behind his back as he glanced back toward the courtroom as sheriff's deputies escorted him out.
An assistant public defender appointed to represent Bailey told the judge that his client, the father of three children, worked side jobs.
The Tribune has learned that a key break for Area South detectives came with the discovery that Bryla's debit card had been used multiple times after she disappeared.
Police said they pulled video from various locations that showed Bailey using the card to withdraw hundreds of dollars at ATMs, make purchases at local stores and gamble.
Detectives also analyzed cell tower data that captured Bailey's phone near Bryla's apartment at the time she went missing, police said.
