Two weeks after being removed from suicide watch at the Kane County Jail, Geneva murder suspect Julia Gutierrez has asked the judge overseeing her murder case to set bail.
In a motion filed Tuesday, Gutierrez’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Julia Yetter, made the request which explains that 53-year-old Gutierrez, who is accused of using a tainted smoothie to kill her husband earlier this year, is no longer viewed as being a danger to herself or others.
“(Gutierrez) doesn’t currently present a threat to her own safety as previously found … ,” Yetter wrote in the motion. “Since April 6, there have been no incidents in which (Gutierrez) is alleged to have acted in any way that would jeopardize her physical safety or that of any other person.”
Gutierrez, who is scheduled to appear in court Thursday, was charged with her husband’s murder after Geneva police found Eduardo Gutierrez dead inside the couple’s Geneva home during a late January well-being check. Julia Gutierrez herself was unresponsive, but survived what has been described as a suicide attempt. Prosecutors contend Gutierrez laced her husband’s smoothie with prescription sleeping pills. After Gutierrez’s arrest, a judge ordered her held without bail and to be placed on suicide watch at the jail because of concerns about her mental state.
Jail officials monitored Gutierrez’s medications to make sure she did not hoard them as part of the precautions taken, court records show.
The jail’s medical staff April 5 determined Gutierrez could be taken off suicide watch pending a judge’s approval, which occurred the next day.
Prosecutors, in court papers filed last week, are seeking to introduce evidence that claims Gutierrez previously tried to fatally poison her husband with a milk shake. They also want her to submit a handwriting sample that would be used by the FBI for comparison with documents she sent to a friend detailing her apparent murder-suicide plans, the documents show.
Dan Campana is a freelance writer for The Beacon-News
