An Aurora man was ordered to remain in custody after prosecutors allege he drove the wrong way on the Dan Ryan Expressway to “scare” a woman who was pleading for her life moments before she died as a result of a five-vehicle crash Friday evening.
Juan Ruiz-Huerta, 29, was charged with first degree murder, kidnapping, unlawful restraint and aggravated battery related to the crash that left 28-year-old Victory A. Swanigan dead and another driver critically injured.
A Cook County judge ordered Ruiz-Huerta to remain in custody during a Monday hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. He is due back in court on Aug. 19.
Ruiz-Huerta had been pursuing Swanigan romantically for months and picked her up after a hair appointment he paid for when he had grown angry with her over the “status of their relationship,” prosecutors said during the hearing.
Shortly after 5:30 p.m. Friday, Ruiz-Huerta drove onto Interstate 94 and passed slowing traffic and police lights north of 31st Street, where Swanigan screamed for help, prosecutors said.
Ruiz-Huerta then did a U-turn and began speeding south in the northbound lanes of I-94 while Swanigan could be heard by her friend begging him to slow down, according to prosecutors.
Swanigan told Ruiz-Huerta she had “three children that she wanted to see again” as he continued to speed, prosecutors said.
CTA surveillance video at 47th street then captured Ruiz-Huerta moving across multiple lanes at high speeds and swerving between multiple cars and trucks that were going in the proper direction before colliding head on with another car going north in the express lanes and causing Ruiz-Huerta’s vehicle to flip over the concrete median and land in the local lanes, according to court documents.
Prosecutors noted that the other driver in the collision — who suffered multiple rib fractures, a laceration to his liver and a variety of other injuries — told investigators he tried to switch lanes to avoid the crash when Ruiz-Huerta changed lanes too.
A return on a search warrant executed on the black box of Ruiz-Huerta’s 2013 Mazda X-5 showed he was traveling 86 mph five seconds before the crash and at the time of impact, he was traveling 78 mph with no depression on the brake and a 25% depression on the accelerator, authorities said.
Swanigan, of the 8800 block of South Normal Avenue in Chicago, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Illinois state police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
Ruiz-Huerta told officers once he knew Swanigan was terrified, he allegedly “put her in danger to get an answer from her” regarding their relationship status.