John Jefferson
Background: News footage of the Feb. 15 explosion in Cicero, Ill. (WLS). Inset: Anthony Avila-Puebla (Cicero Police Department).
Illinois police said that a man seen entering a home in Cicero with several jugs before that building exploded was the one responsible for the blast.
The Cicero Police Department confirmed to several news outlets including Chicago ABC affiliate WLS that the man whose remains were found among the rubble was Anthony Avila-Puebla, 31. Police said the investigation revealed the jugs contained a flammable liquid and Avila-Puebla was determined to be responsible for the explosion, which took place on Feb. 15 during the wedding of the homeowners. According to police, Avila-Puebla was reportedly in a relationship with someone else who lived at the home and had been seen at the wedding earlier in the day — before going missing from the crowd of guests.
Investigators told WGN, a local Nexstar affiliate, that before the blast that shook the neighborhood at 5 p.m., Avila-Puebla was seen at the Feb. 15 wedding of Eleni Vrettos, 32, and Tom Davis, whose age was not given, with his date, a relative of Vrettos who lived at the home of the bride’s family. At some point during the wedding festivities, Avila-Puebla left the wedding and headed to the home of the bride and groom.
According to police, Avila-Puebla was caught on surveillance cameras parking his car half a block from the home. When he got out of the car, he retrieved a five-gallon jug before entering the building. He came out to his car, retrieved several more jugs, and went back inside the building. He never came out.
At approximately 4:50 p.m., after the couple were finishing up their vows, their phones and several other phones started lighting up with notifications that there was a fire in their neighborhood. Vrettos told WGN upon arriving at the scene, “I ran here in my wedding dress, like down the alley, and was watching from a neighbor’s yard. Everything was just smoke at that point.”
When the fire was finally extinguished, all that remained was rubble. The explosion also damaged a neighboring building, displacing 11 families. The Vrettos family lost six cats in the blast.
Police did not provide any information about Avila-Puebla’s possible motivations.
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