Eliana Bigoni had gone to collect her two young children for school when friends lost contact with her, according to an arrest affidavit.

PLANO, Texas — What was supposed to be a brief morning pickup of two children for school turned into a welfare check, a search of a Plano apartment and the discovery of a 34-year-old mother dead in the trunk of a car, according to police and an arrest affidavit.

Jake O’Brien Bigoni, 37, is charged with murder and abuse of a corpse without legal authority in the Aug. 12 death of his estranged wife, Eliana Alexandra Bigoni, authorities said. Police have accused Bigoni of killing his wife after she arrived at his apartment in the 4700 block of Charles Place to collect the couple’s children, ages 2 and 5. The allegations remain unproven in court, and publicly available accounts reviewed for this report do not establish a motive or identify a final medical finding on the cause of death.

The chain of events that brought officers to the apartment began not with a 911 report of an assault but with people close to Eliana Bigoni noticing that an ordinary morning had stopped making sense. According to the probable cause affidavit described by multiple news organizations, she planned to pick up the children and take them to school. A witness told investigators that the exchange should have taken roughly 10 to 15 minutes. Instead, Bigoni stopped responding to calls and messages.

The witness had spoken with Bigoni for about six minutes beginning at 7:17 a.m., according to the affidavit. They were also supposed to meet for breakfast at 8:30 a.m. When Bigoni did not arrive, concern grew. Because she had shared the location of her cellphone, the witness could see that the device appeared to remain at The Parker Apartments, where Jake Bigoni lived. The affidavit says the phone’s location still showed the apartment complex when the witness checked at about 8:35 a.m.

Plano police said officers were dispatched at 10:23 a.m. on a welfare concern involving potential family violence. The department’s initial public statement did not describe the detailed events that investigators later placed in the affidavit. It said only that a caller had been unable to reach a woman and had asked police for help. When officers arrived, the case was still being treated as an effort to determine whether Eliana Bigoni was safe.

Jake Bigoni told officers that his wife had been at the apartment earlier but that he did not know where she was, according to the affidavit. He said the couple was going through a divorce and that she had come to pick up a child, but the child did not feel well. During that first conversation, two officers noticed what the affidavit described as a large wet area on his shirt. They did not yet know what had happened to Eliana Bigoni.

The officers returned with more questions. They asked whether Eliana Bigoni had driven to the apartment and checked the garage, where they saw a white Hyundai Genesis, according to the affidavit. When they asked Jake Bigoni about the wet area on his clothing, he said he had been cleaning the home. Police then returned to their patrol vehicle as information continued to reach them from dispatch and other people connected to the family.

By about 10:44 a.m., the nature of the welfare check had changed. Updated notes on the police call indicated that someone might have been seriously harmed. Another note said a son had reported that his mother was dead, according to the affidavit. Officers then contacted Jake Bigoni’s mother, whose account added a new and more direct reason for them to fear that Eliana Bigoni could be inside the residence and in immediate danger.

Jake Bigoni’s mother told police that she had spoken with her son at about 10:15 a.m. and that he told her, “I have something to tell you. She’s dead,” according to the affidavit. She also reported that he said the couple had gotten into a fight. The statement became a central part of the officers’ decision-making because it conflicted with what Jake Bigoni had told police at his door — that he did not know his wife’s current location.

At 10:46 a.m., officers went back to the apartment and detained Bigoni, according to the affidavit. When they asked whether his wife was inside, he continued to deny knowing where she was. Police also confronted him with the reported conversation with his mother. During the exchange, officers said the mark they had earlier seen on his shirt had dried into a darker, reddish-brown stain. Faced with the conflicting statements and information suggesting that a woman might be injured inside, officers conducted what the affidavit described as an emergency sweep to look for Eliana Bigoni and determine whether she needed lifesaving assistance.

Police found her in the trunk of the Hyundai Genesis in the garage, the affidavit says. Officers determined that she was unresponsive and not breathing. Investigators also reported seeing blood inside the residence and injuries to Bigoni’s head and face. Authorities have described those observations in support of the criminal allegations, but the available public reports do not identify a final autopsy conclusion or provide an independently verified medical determination of how she died.

The couple’s two young children were at the residence when police conducted the welfare check, according to local reporting based on the affidavit. Officers removed the children after finding their mother. Authorities have not publicly provided a detailed account of what either child saw or heard that morning, and responsible reporting does not require speculation about their experience. Their presence, however, helps explain why information attributed to a child appeared among the updates reaching officers as the investigation rapidly shifted from a missing-person concern to a suspected homicide.

Police initially arrested Jake Bigoni on a charge of abuse of a corpse without legal authority and took him to the Plano City Jail. The following day, Aug. 13, Plano detectives obtained a warrant charging him with murder. The Police Department identified both Bigoni and his wife in a public update and said the Crimes Against Persons Unit was continuing the investigation. Local jail reporting described murder as a first-degree felony under Texas law and the corpse-abuse allegation as a state jail felony.

The case also left a family mourning a woman whose life extended far beyond the allegations described in the police records. Funeral-home information identifies Eliana Alexandra Bigoni Ruiz as a native of Bogotá, Colombia, born July 30, 1992. Relatives and friends remembered her in tributes as a mother, daughter, sister and friend. A funeral-home notice said services were held in Houston on Sept. 11 before plans to transfer her remains to Colombia. Friends described her as energetic, caring and devoted to her family and animals.

The contrast between those remembrances and the clinical language of the arrest affidavit is stark. The police document focuses on telephone calls, timestamps, observations and statements officers say they gathered during little more than two hours on the morning of Aug. 12. Those details form the basis for the criminal accusations, but they do not answer every question. Publicly reviewed materials do not establish why the alleged confrontation occurred, exactly when Eliana Bigoni died or what prosecutors ultimately will contend happened before police arrived.

As of the latest reliable public reporting reviewed for this story, Jake Bigoni remained accused of murder and abuse of a corpse in connection with his wife’s death, and Plano police had described the investigation as continuing. The charges are accusations, and guilt must be established in court. No later public source located for this report documented a trial verdict or other final resolution of the murder case.

Author note: Last updated Sept. 22, 2026.