Man sentenced for fatally stabbing his girlfriend after she filed an order of protection against him

DUPAGE COUNTY, Ill. (TCN) -- A 29-year-old man will spend seven decades behind bars for killing his 24-year-old live-in girlfriend and leaving a butcher knife in her leg in 2021.

DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin announced that a judge sentenced Marco-Antonio Rubio on Sept. 11 to 70 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections for the first-degree murder of Esmeralda DeLuna, the mother of their three children. He is required to serve 100% of his sentence before parole eligibility.

Rubio was initially charged in May 2021 and has been in custody since. He pleaded guilty in March.

According to prosecutors, on the night of May 19, 2021, Villa Park Police responded to a home on North Princeton Drive, where they knocked on the door and heard crying coming from inside. Officers entered the house and found two young girls, between 3 and 6 years old, as well as a male child around 1 year old.

Police reportedly followed a trail of blood to DeLuna lying in the kitchen with a large butcher knife in her leg and stab injuries to her torso. DeLuna was transported to a local hospital and pronounced deceased the following morning.

According to the state’s attorney’s office, investigators learned that in early May 2021, DeLuna filed an order of protection against Rubio, requiring him to move out of their home. On May 19, 2021, prosecutors said Rubio violated that protection and broke into the home. He reportedly stabbed DeLuna numerous times in the torso and once in the leg before fleeing the scene. Authorities took him into custody the next morning while he was walking in Villa Park.

In a statement, Berlin said, "While what essentially amounts to a life sentence behind bars cannot erase the vicious murder of a loving mother, perhaps Esmeralda’s surviving family and friends can find some measure of solace knowing justice was delivered in Esmeralda’s name."