Death by Love

Domestic homicide has touched almost every community in Northwest Indiana. Following are the names and stories of area victims in recent years.

CHERRY CANDELARIA
Died April 16, 1993 - Gary

Candelaria, 35, was at home with her two children when her live-in boyfriend, Eddie Jerome Mills, 39, became angry and started storming around the house. Modesto Candelaria, her 15-year-old son, was watching television in the next room when he heard a gunshot. He found his mother lying on the floor and Mills cocking a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. Mills then shot Modesto in the face. The boy fell to the ground and played dead until Mills left. The boy survived. His mother was pronounced dead at the scene. Mills was convicted of murder.

MARTA CARTAGENA
Died Aug. 4, 1991 - East Chicago

Neighbors were startled when gunshots rang out in their quiet East Chicago neighborhood. Manuel Cartagena had shot his wife of 24 years, Marta, then turned the gun on himself. The two had just separated pending a divorce. They had three teen-age children: Luis, Jose and Julio. Migdalia Delgado, who once lived in an apartment downstairs from the Cartagenas, said she often had heard the couple argue. Manuel had threatened his wife "many times," Delgado said. "She had left about three weeks ago and had been in hiding."

ANNETTA DEPEW
Died Dec. 19, 1993 - Portage

After neighbors reported a disturbance in progress, Portage police found Annetta Depew, 41, and Jack W. Depew Jr., 37, dead in their Portage home. Jack had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to the Porter County coroner's office. Annetta died of a shot to the neck.

MARGARET ELLIS
Died Jan. 4, 1992 - Highland

Greg Ellis, 31, murdered his wife, Margaret "Margie" Ellis, 27, in their kitchen after she asked him for a divorce. The butcher for a Michigan City supermarket stabbed his wife twice in the chest, four times in the back and once in the arm. Then he went to the basement of their Highland home and slashed himself across the stomach in a suicide attempt. The couple's two children, an 8-year-old girl and a 4-year-old boy, were not home at the time. Greg pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter. He had originally been charged with murder. He is serving a 30-year prison term.

KIM EVANS
Died Oct. 2, 1991 - Hammond

Carrying a pistol-stock shotgun, Jacob Evans walked confidently into Hammond City Hall and fatally shot his estranged wife, Kim. He then took his own life. As Jacob, 42, pointed the gun at her, a witness said the man told his estranged wife, "Bitch, why did you do it? Bitch, you're going to pay." Kim, 35, had been staying at The Caring Place, a battered woman's shelter near Valparaiso. She had tried to break away from her abusive husband and had filed for divorce. But after she took her 14-year-old daughter and left for the shelter, Jacob started stalking them.

ANN FLICKINGER
Died April 24, 1994 - Valparaiso

Apparently angered by his wife Ann's divorce filing, Kenneth Flickinger accosted her and her family in the parking lot of a Valparaiso grocery store. Robert Nicholson, Ann's father, pulled a gun and pointed it at Flickinger, telling his wife, Paula, to call police. But Kenneth wrestled the weapon from him and shot him once in the chest, then chased Ann, 25, through the crowded parking lot, firing repeatedly. Ann was hit once in the back and fell to the ground. Kenneth ran up to her and shot her in the head at point-blank range. Kenneth led police on a 10-mile chase before wrecking his van at County Roads 425 East and 600 North. As police surrounded his vehicle, he shot and killed himself. Ann's family survived.

PEGGY ANN JONES
Died Aug. 10, 1993 - Gary

Jones was shot to death by her estranged husband, Edrow Jones, both of Gary. Edrow had a history of trying to trace his wife's movements. On that day, he had hidden behind the front porch of her home, waiting for her to arrive. When she walked toward her front door, he shot her twice in the head. Edrow was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

BRICINE LOCQUAIO
Died Oct. 15, 1993 - Munster

When Bricine Locquaio was shot to death in her Munster home, she was in the middle of what had become for her a routine event - dialing 911. Her ex-husband, Asterio Locquaio, 47, of Lockport, Ill., is in Lake County Jail awaiting a Dec. 16 hearing at which his trial date will be set in the murder of his 47-year-old wife and her fiance, Peter Zatorski, 47. One of Bricine's former neighbors said she witnessed some of the abuse that led Bricine to call Tinley Park police seven times in three years for problems with Asterio. Both Bricine and Asterio Locquaio were chemical engineers. They had two children - Armand, born in 1975, and Jeremy, born in 1984.

KIMBERLY MODISETTE
Died Aug. 8, 1991 - Gary

Police found Kimberly Modisette, 36, stabbed in the chest and back when they answered a call at her Gary home. Her boyfriend, Fred Starks, 49, was sitting on the steps with cuts on his hands and blood on his clothing. Kimberly was taken to Methodist Hospital in Gary, where she later died. Fred was charged with murder.

TERESA MONTEMAYOR
Died July 31, 1991 - East Chicago

Teresa Montemayor was shot to death by her estranged husband, Mark, at friend's Hammond home where she had sought refuge. Mark Montemayor, an East Chicago police officer, then turned the gun on himself. Earlier that day, East Chicago Police Chief George Pabey suspended Mark and told police to pick him up and take his gun after he had sexually assaulted his wife with the 9mm semiautomatic pistol. Mark murdered his wife and killed himself less than five hours later - before his fellow officers took his gun. Teresa's lawyer was on the way to take her to a shelter for battered women. The couple's two young daughters were present at the shooting. One daughter has since died of natural causes. The day after the murder-suicide, the East Chicago Police Department was criticized for lowering its American flag to half staff and draping the police station entrance in black and purple bunting in mourning for Mark. The couple was buried side by side in silver and bronze caskets.

MICHELLE AND SANDY YELACHICH
Died Feb. 12, 1993 - Hebron

"My God, Sharon, we've been shot. He shot us all." Sandy Yelachich managed to gasp that one final plea for help to neighbor Sharon Harder before collapsing on Harder's porch with a bullet in her back. Her daughter's jilted boyfriend, Mark Francis, had just walked into their home and begun blasting away with a 9mm pistol, a rampage over a broken engagement that left three dead and another critically injured. Inside the Yelachich home, Michelle Yelachich, 20, lay in her bedroom, shot in the head. The former Hebron High School cheerleader died two days later at Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso. Her mother Sandy, 41, was pronounced dead on arrival. Michelle's father, Michael Yelachich, 47, was shot several times, but survived. Mark, a 25-year-old ex-Marine with a history of mental problems and run-ins with police, lay in his girlfriend's bedroom with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He died later at Porter Memorial.