My youngest daughter, Katie, who was only 20 years old, was killed on Jan. 19. Her only “crime” was being a passenger in a car in Urbana, Illinois. The man who took her life, Julio Cucul-Bol, was an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk when he slammed into the Honda Civic she was riding in at nearly 80 miles an hour. He fled immediately and was then aided by associates in Urbana and Chicago as he tried to escape justice.
We later learned Cucul-Bol, a Guatemalan national, was using a Mexican alias: Juan Jahaziel Saenz-Suarez. Federal authorities knew about the alias. If his identity, background, and health status had been properly verified, he could have been filtered out long before Jan. 19. Katie would still be alive.
Yet Illinois officials have insisted there is nothing they can do about the people who helped him flee. After leaving Urbana, he traveled to Chicago and boarded a bus to Mexico. Only two days after President Donald Trump returned to office, U.S. Marshals finally caught Cucul-Bol in Texas. I will always wonder if he would have been caught had the prior administration still been in charge.
For years, the preferred term was “undocumented immigrant.” I will not use it. The man who killed my daughter had multiple documents and multiple identities. “Illegal alien” is the accurate, legal term.
The political leadership of Illinois created the conditions that made Katie’s death possible. By declaring Illinois a sanctuary state — proudly and without guardrails — they invited the world to enter and be protected, with virtually no screening. I repeatedly asked what front-end vetting exists: background checks, health screenings, identity verification, anything.
What I learned after Katie’s death is devastating: Cucul-Bol entered the country, the state, and our community with a communicable infectious disease. It went undetected and untreated. He was released into our community with no oversight and no warning. That is not compassion; it is governmental negligence.
We do not even know whether he was issued an Illinois driver’s license. Our FOIA requests have been denied due to “ongoing investigations.” If Illinois gave him a license, how did he pass the written exam when he reported having no formal education in any language? No answers.
Meanwhile, Illinois taxpayers, including our family, are now paying more than $60,000 a year to house him in Stateville, not including medical treatment. Our governor has said every illegal immigrant “betters” the state, and criminals will receive due process. Katie received no due process. She received a death sentence. And we are serving life without her.
Illinois continues its extreme sanctuary policies, calling them moral. But morality without responsibility is recklessness.
After Katie’s death, Trump and his administration reached out with compassion and acknowledged our loss. Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) has not acknowledged her death at all. No phone call. No letter. No condolences. Nothing — from him or any statewide official who championed the policies that helped enable this tragedy.
We are lifelong Illinois residents. Our own governor could not spare a moment to acknowledge that a young woman in his state was killed by someone protected by policies he defends. Compassion from state leadership is selective. Our family did not qualify.
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Illinois must finally answer the following questions.
- What recourse do residents have when the state fails this catastrophically on issues of basic public safety?
- Why does Illinois refuse to partner fully with federal agencies that could identify or remove dangerous noncitizens before they kill someone?
- What checks existed — if any? How did Cucul-Bol pose as a Mexican national? Why was his infectious disease not identified or treated? Were any of these processes ever audited?
- What systems track individuals protected under sanctuary policies, and how much taxpayer money has been spent supporting illegal aliens who violate the law?
- Why has not one Illinois official contacted us?
- What reforms would you demand if this were your child?
As the holidays approach, state leaders will gather around full tables, shielded from the consequences of their policies. We will have an empty chair: Katie’s chair. Illinois’s extreme policies helped put it there. It is past time for commonsense reforms that put the safety of Illinois residents first. My hope is that no other family in our state ever experiences what we have endured.
Joe Abraham is the father of Katie Abraham, who was killed in January 2025 by an illegal immigrant.
