Flight Attendant's Accused Killer Arrested After 21-Year Manhunt

DES PLAINES, IL — More than 21 years after the fatal stabbing of a United Airlines flight attendant in her Des Plaines apartment, the man accused of killing her appeared in court Thursday for the first time since he was extradited from Mexico.

Young Kavila, 30, was found by her roommate lying dead on the floor of her kitchen on Nov. 30, 1999. She had been repeatedly stabbed and beaten after a struggle, drawing blood from her attacker, authorities said.

Within 12 hours, prosecutors said her killer had hopped on a bus to Mexico with a "large, untreated gash across his chest," arriving about two days later.

But it would be nearly a decade before detectives got a tip that broke open the case enough to get a warrant — and another dozen years after that before authorities were able to take the man accused of Kavila's murder into custody.

Detectives managed to collect a set of bloody fingerprints from a doorknob in Kavila's apartment and DNA samples from another person's blood found on her shoe and in her bedroom, according to Assistant State's Attorney Lou Longhitano.

It was not until 2007 that detectives got a tip about a man in Mexico who was said to have bragged to family members about the murder — Luis Rodriguez-Mena.

That tip led investigators to a woman who had been living with Rodriguez-Mena at the time of Kavila's killing. He and the woman lived only about 100 feet across the parking lot of the Colonial Park Apartments at Elmhurst and Algonquin road.

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According to past reports, she left the country with Rodriguez-Mena and gave birth to his child two years later. But she said she returned to the United States after suffering repeated physical abuse from him.

A DNA sample from his child was matched to blood found at the scene, and copies of his fingerprints from an arrest in Mexico were matched to the bloody print on the doorknob, according to prosecutors. By 2008, authorities had obtained an arrest warrant for Rodriguez-Mena.

"However, the defendant's capture was unable to be executed, because he was in an area controlled by violent cartels and local Mexican law enforcement deemed efforts to locate and arrest him too dangerous," Longhitano said at a bail hearing Thursday in Skokie.

Des Plaines Police Chief Bill Kushner said the FBI and Interpol had made several attempts to arrest Rodriguez-Mena, but his family kept hiding him.

"His family was most uncooperative," Kushner said at a news conference Thursday. "His family was moving him around different locations in Mexico. They were aware of this right from the beginning. When he fled to Mexico in 1999, shortly after the murder, he admitted to his family members that he had killed a flight attendant in Des Plaines — they hid it from everyone."

As a fugitive, Rodriguez-Mena was spotlighted in a 2012 episode of America's Most Wanted, and challenges to the effort to apprehend him were featured in the Chicago Tribune's 2011 "Fugitives from Justice" investigative series.

Kavila was born in Seoul and lived primarily on the West Coast, but she also shared the small apartment near O'Hare International Airport with another flight attendant, according to the Tribune report. She would send a part of her salary to Korea every month to support her parents and younger siblings.

Following another tip earlier this year, Mexican, federal and international law enforcement conducted an operation aimed at capturing Rodriguez-Mena, "but he escaped just as they arrived," Longhitano said.

In June, Rodriguez-Mena was arrested in the Mexican state of Morelo. After months of fighting the extradition process, he was returned to the U.S. earlier this week to face charges.

Since Rodriguez-Mena has never had legal documentation to enter or live in the United States, authorities are unsure how long he had been in the country before the killing.

His defense attorney, Assistant Public Defender Caroline Glennon, said Rodriguez-Mena had lived at the same Des Plaines address for about 5 years. Kushner said Des Plaines police have no indication he was involved in any other crimes in the area.

According to Longhitano, Department of Homeland Security officials said they would take Rodriguez-Mena back into federal custody and deport him without trial should he be granted bail or released.

Rodriguez-Mena said nothing during his bond hearing, which was conducted via video teleconferencing software and an interpreter. Appearing from the lockup at the Skokie Courthouse wearing a lined leather winter coat, Rodriguez-Mena could be seen leaning in to better hear the translation of the proceedings.

Cook County Circuit Judge Paul Pavlus said he would be negligent if he refused to grant the prosecution's request to order Rodriguez-Mena held with no bail ahead of trial in light of the threat to public safety and strong evidence of his guilt.

"Even after the passage of time, approximately 21 years, it doesn't make these allegations any less appalling," Pavlus said. "Nor does that make him any less a real or present threat to the entire community that we live in."