The argument Arturo Taylor got into with his longtime girlfriend began with words. But the fight inside a northwest suburban hotel room soon turned violent, Cook County prosecutors alleged in court this week.
They accused Taylor of strangling his girlfriend, 50-year-old Colleen Bagley, and fatally stabbing her twice in the chest on Feb. 21 with a butcher knife. He later threw her body near a dumpster, prosecutors said.
At a detention hearing on Monday, Judge James Murphy ordered Taylor detained pending trial, court records show. The 54-year-old Fox Lake man faces a first-degree murder charge.
In ordering him detained, Murphy said he poses a threat to the community and is a convicted felon with a “violent history,” including for aggravated battery, court records show.
Bagley’s brother, Jason Ehardt, told the Tribune in a phone call Wednesday that when he heard his sister had been brutally killed his first thought was “I hope they got him.” He described her as an “outgoing” and “nice” person, and fondly remembers them hanging out frequently as kids at parks. She had multiple adult children, he said.
“I wish we had more time together,” Ehardt said. “I’m gonna miss her.” Ehardt said for years he’s mostly only heard from Bagley in sporadic phone calls. She struggled with drug addiction, as did her boyfriend, he said. But he never imagined something so horrible could happen.
Captured on surveillance footage
Surveillance footage was captured hours before Bagley’s death on Feb. 21 at an Elk Grove Village hotel in the 2400 block of Landmeier Road. The couple, who had been together for nine years, had lived at the hotel for about two years, prosecutors said.
The footage showed Bagley throughout the day walking in the parking lot and shopping at a nearby Walgreens store, where she bought bleach. Just before 7 p.m., Taylor is shown on video going into their room, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors alleged the couple got into a verbal altercation about another female resident of the hotel Taylor had spent time with that evening. Taylor then strangled Bagley and stabbed her with a folding blade knife and “large” butcher knife, prosecutors alleged.
On Feb. 25, Taylor was again captured on video around 2 a.m. walking toward the dumpsters in the hotel’s parking lot. He carried a pink garbage bag, prosecutors said.
A couple of hours later, a witness walking in the parking lot found Bagley’s body wrapped in a white blanket with a blue check mark pattern next to the dumpster, prosecutors said.
Elk Grove Village police were called to the hotel and Bagley was pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled her death a homicide caused by multiple sharp force injuries.
Inside the dumpster, officers found a suitcase covered in Bagley’s blood. Inside the couple’s room, police recovered two knives, Taylor’s shoes and Taylor’s jeans, all of which had blood stains, prosecutors said. Blood stains and dried bleach also covered the floor.
Police also found a pillow with the same checkered pattern Bagley’s body was wrapped in, prosecutors said.
While police were investigating at the hotel, Taylor agreed to be questioned. At the Police Department he attempted to hang himself and was briefly hospitalized, prosecutors said.
He later admitted, however, to strangling and stabbing Bagley twice because she “pulled a pocketknife on him,” prosecutors alleged. He said he put Bagley’s body in a suitcase and threw it down the stairs, but wasn’t able to lift it into the dumpster. He also said he tried to clean the blood but became “very tired” and couldn’t clean it all, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors also said Schaumburg police had responded in 2023 to a different hotel to escort Bagley and Taylor from a room for nonpayment. At the time, Bagley told an officer that she feared Taylor would become physically aggressive with her.
