Batavia woman gets 25 years for fatally stabbing boyfriend during fight

A west suburban woman who fatally stabbed her boyfriend during an argument in 2012 pleaded guilty Thursday to murder and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Latoya M. Baines, 27, formerly of the 1200 block of East Wilson Street in Batavia, agreed to the sentence in exchange for guilty pleas to second-degree murder and burglary, according to the Kane County state’s attorney’s office.

Judge Susan Clancy Boles accepted the second-degree murder plea, which meant the defendant’s action “reflects an unreasonable belief of a need to defend one’s self,” according to a statement from prosecutors.

About 1 a.m. on April 30, 2012, Baines and her boyfriend – 25-year-old Gerald J. Jackson of Chicago — were at the apartment of a female friend in the 1100 block of East Wilson Street in Batavia when Baines returned to her own apartment.

When she came back to her friend’s apartment, she “became angry, left the apartment, retrieved knives from her own apartment and returned to the friend’s apartment, where she confronted Mr. Jackson,” prosecutors said.

The argument continued in a hallway and Jackson followed Baines down a stairwell. “While on the stairs, Baines lunged at Mr. Jackson with the knife, stabbing him once in the chest,” prosecutors said. He died shortly afterward.

The sentence — 20 years for murder and five years for burglary — must be served consecutively, and Baines was also ordered to pay $11,450 Jackson’s family for the cost of his funeral.

By law, she is eligible for day-for-day sentencing and received credit for 1,103 days served in the Kane County jail, where she has been held on a $750,000 bond.