CHICAGO (CBS) — A woman who police say was stabbed to death by her estranged husband in the Portage Park neighborhood on Tuesday had tried for months to make his abuse stop.
Advocates for domestic violence survivors want a Cook County judge reinstated after releasing a man from custody following an earlier attack on his wife.
Lacramioara Beldie, 54, was stabbed to death Tuesday around 2:30 p.m. in the 5600 block of West Leland Avenue.
An off-duty Chicago police detective was shot while trying to stop the attack. The victim’s husband, Constantin Beldie, 57, escaped but was later found dead in a vehicle a block away, having committed suicide.
It turns out that Lacramioara Beldie made numerous attempts to get help before the attack, and failed repeatedly to protect the woman and mother from her accused abuser.
There were already warning signs before the fatal stabbing. The CBS News Chicago Investigators obtained months of records from the Cook County Domestic Violence Court that show Lacramioara was granted an emergency protective order in January, accusing her estranged husband of harassment, physical abuse and stalking.
They reached an agreement in March to revoke the protective order under numerous conditions, including requiring him to stay away from her.
But in October, Constantin was charged with aggravated domestic violence and attempted kidnapping after he allegedly approached her in an alley and beat her up and dragged her to his car, where she screamed until she escaped. According to court records, evidence in that case included a witness and surveillance video.
Prosecutors in that case asked Judge Thomas Nowinski to order Constantin into Cook County Jail while he awaited trial, but Nowinski denied that request and instead released him on electronic monitoring.
Amanda Pyron, president of the Advocating Against Domestic Violence Network, said she believes Nowinski made the wrong decision.
“Electronic monitoring and GPS are grossly inadequate in cases of domestic violence,” she said.
Pyron said Nowinski should be removed from the county’s Domestic Violence Unit.
“I think the case history and the results indicate that this is not the best fit for him,” she said.
Nowinski is the same judge who an emergency protection order denied in another high-profile case.
Last year, 11-year-old Jayden Perkins was stabbed to death while trying to protect his mother, just weeks after she tried and failed to get a protective order against her accused abuser, Crosetti Brand, who is charged with Jayden’s murder.
Nowinski denied that protective order, noting that Brand was in jail at the time. However, the Illinois Prisoner Review Board granted Brand parole in February, allowing him to be released from prison a day before the attack. At that time, the board was unaware that Perkins’ mother had requested protection from Brand.
Pyron has said that in that case, Nowinski should have asked why Brand was in custody, and how quickly he could be released from custody. Brand was in prison at the time for violating the terms of his parole in a previous conviction, including by trying to break into a woman’s home. Court records show protective orders have been filed against Brand by four other women dating back to 2004.
“I don’t think this judge understands domestic violence, and I don’t think he’s qualified to judge domestic violence cases,” Pyron said. “I think he has more than proven that there are two people who should be alive and who are not.”
Pyron also the system is clearly flawed.
“As advocates, we are naturally frustrated by a system that consistently fails survivors,” Pyron said.
She said Illinois laws like the SAFE-T Act — which eliminated cash bail — do not protect the victim.
“Before this legislation, every person who came into court was assigned a dollar amount,” she said.
But she said the problem isn’t with a law like the SAFE-T Act itself, but with the way people, like Judge Nowinski, use it.
Chief Nowinski and Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Advocates are calling for passage of Illinois law to help victims of domestic violence
Meanwhile, advocates are also pushing for a new law Karina’s Bill be passed on. The bill would require police to remove firearms from a home under specific protective orders in cases of domestic violence.
The bill is named in honor of Karina Gonzalez, who was shot and killed by her husband in July 2023 in Little Village. He also killed Gonzalez’s 15-year-old daughter, Daniela.
They were shot, even though Karina had a protection order that could have led to the removal of his weapon by the police.
“When we first introduced this bill, Karina Gonzalez was still alive,” Pyron said.
Illinois Senator Celina Villanueva (D-Chicago) hopes to move the bill forward. But it has been held up for the past two years due to concerns about the number of officers it will take to implement the law.
“The reality is that we’ve been dealing with a lot of different stakeholders who, while I think they largely agree on the purpose of the bill, disagree on the process and the way to get there,” he said. Villanueva.
Dave Savini
