20-Year-Old Student Strangled To Death In Car By Man She Met Online: Prosecutors

A 20-year-old nursing student found dead in Cook County, Illinois, last month was killed by a man she had met online, prosecutors alleged in court Saturday.

The suspect was identified as 24-year-old Richard Chavez. He was charged with first-degree murder in connection with Charisma Ehresman's death, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Cook County prosecutors said Ehresman drove to Chavez’s Oak Park home on Jan. 23. Footage from a private surveillance camera captured Chavez walking on the sidewalk and going inside the residence with Ehresman that night.

However, the nursing student was not seen leaving the residence, according to prosecutors.

The following morning, the suspect drove Ehresman’s car to the 5900 block of West Iowa Street and got out alone, prosecutors said. Chavez then allegedly walked around for about an hour before calling his brother to pick him up less than a mile away from where he left the car.

Ehresman was reported missing by her family on Jan. 25. Her father told the news outlet that it was unusual for his daughter not to inform her family of her whereabouts.

Ehresman’s body was discovered by police three days later in the back seat of her car with a jacket covering her face, according to prosecutors.

Her cause of death was determined to be strangulation and smothering. The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide.

The last call Ehresman made was to a number registered to Chavez, according to her cell phone records. Her phone's location records also showed it "pinged" at his home on Jan. 23, prosecutors said.

Detectives spoke to Chavez at his home on the day Ehresman was reported missing. The suspect was taken into custody on an outstanding arrest warrant in a pending DUI case out of North Riverside, according to court records.

Chavez told detectives that he and Ehresman "hooked up" but that she had been gone by the time he woke up the next morning.

While in police custody, Chavez told his parents, in a phone call that was recorded, to get his passport ready, according to prosecutors.

A search of Chavez's home by investigators on Jan. 31 revealed that the suspect had a suitcase that was partially packed in his bedroom and a mask he was seen wearing in surveillance footage after abandoning Ehresman's car, prosecutors said.

Chavez was ordered held without bail by Judge Susana Ortiz.

"There's no way a parent can explain this pain," the father of Charisma, Jeff Ehresman, was quoted as saying by ABC 7. "She was the most caring person, the most beautiful soul I have ever had the pleasure of knowing."