On Wednesday evening, just minutes after his girlfriend arrived at his apartment in Uptown, a guy allegedly tossed a naked woman from the fifth-floor window of his building, killing her.
When Tyson Tillman made a call from the police station, prosecutor James O’Connor claims that Tillman told the other person on the line, “I threw the b*tch out the window,” a comment supposedly caught on an officer’s body-worn camera.
Aside from identifying the victim as Tabitha Tanner, O’Connor said nothing about the murder’s motive or Tillman’s relationship to the woman.
Tillman arrived to his apartment building on the 4500 block of North Magnolia about 10:09 p.m. on Wednesday, and his girlfriend arrived 38 minutes later, according to surveillance footage, O’Connor said.
Tillman’s girlfriend had paced the corridor for at least 10 minutes, according to the neighbor’s doorbell cameras.
Tanner’s nude body was filmed falling to the ground in an alley behind the apartment building at 10:59 p.m. by an external camera, he said.
It was just a matter of minutes after Tanner’s fall that Tillman, 38, was observed leaving his apartment in a red shirt, and an external camera showed someone in a red shirt checking on Tanner’s lifeless body at 11:03. In Tillman’s account, he returned to the building at 11:11pm.
On Thursday, Tanner’s corpse was found at 6:11 a.m., and she died at 6:30 a.m, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which attributed her death to injuries incurred in a fall from a height, including a broken leg, face injuries and a lacerated heart.
O’Connor added that when police arrived at the scene, Tillman initially denied any knowledge of the incident. O’Connor persisted, but Tillman subsequently confessed that they had a violent argument in his apartment.
According to Tillman, Tanner’s clothes came off during the altercation, and she fell from the window, according to authorities.
Although detectives questioned Tillman, an officer’s bodycam reportedly captured him admitting, “I threw the b*tch out the window.” in a phone conversation.
Tillman’s public defender said that he lives alone and is expecting a child. She said that it is too early to tell if Tanner was thrown from the window or whether she leapt or fell on her own, and that it is impossible to tell at this stage.
To O’Connor’s knowledge, Tillman has been incarcerated eight times since 2003, all of which were drug-related in nature. First-degree murder charges have been filed against him.
Judge Mary Marubio cited Tillman’s “callous manner” in referring to Tanner during the phone call and ordered him jailed without bail.
