$3M bond for man charged with fatal stabbing at Glen Ellyn graduation party

A fatal stabbing that marred a graduation party last weekend in the western suburbs has led to murder charges against an 18-year-old man, who is behind bars on a $3 million bond.

Alberto Jimenez | DuPage County sheriff’s office

Alberto Jimenez is charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery for the June 6 attack in unincorporated Glen Ellyn that left 19-year-old Tehavis Price dead and another woman wounded, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.

“It is unfortunate that during a time of celebration, this horrific incident occurred,” DuPage County Sheriff John Zaruba said in a statement.

Just after 10:30 p.m. Saturday, sheriff’s deputies responded to a 911 to “a fight in progress on Prairie Avenue in unincorporated Glen Ellyn,” a statement from prosecutors said.

Deputies found Price and Verkita Vargas suffering stab wounds, and both were taken to a hospital, where Price was pronounced dead. “Vargas was treated for her wounds and is expected to recover,” prosecutors said.

Earlier in the evening, Jimenez had gone to a graduation party on Prairie Avenue, and while there, he “approached a vehicle in which Price and Vargas were sitting . . . opened the front driver’s side door of the vehicle and stabbed Vargas in the abdomen as she sat in the vehicle.

Price then got out of the car and came toward Jimenez, “who stabbed Price several times in the upper body” before running away, prosecutors said.

He was arrested the following morning at a home in Hanover Park and has remained in custody at the DuPage County Jail.

On Tuesday, Judge Karen Wilson ordered Jimenez held on $3 million and set arraignment for July 7 before Judge Robert Kleeman.

“It is alleged that during a high school graduation party, Alberto Jimenez brutally took the life of Tehavis Price,” state’s attorney Robert Berlin said in the statement. “This senseless murder will leave a hole in the heart of those who loved Tehavis, and our thoughts and prayers are with them as they attempt to come to terms with this tragic crime.”