San Leandro– Sonia Ilustre was a fixture in her neighborhood for years.

Every day, Ilustre walked the two blocks from her apartment on the corner of Williams and Hays Street to the 76 gas station. There she bought a pack of Benson & Hedges menthol lights and some SuperLotto tickets. Along the way, she stopped to chat with neighbors. Recently, she had suggested starting a neighborhood watch.

But now Ilustre is dead, San Leandro’s second homicide of the year. And her death has put this working class neighborhood, bounded on one side by a BART station and the other by downtown San Leandro, on edge.

“Sonia was more than just a statistic - she was a person,” said a woman who lives in the apartment below Ilustre’s and identified herself only as “Jackie.” Jackie moved into the apartment in May and has been so disturbed by Ilustre’s death that she is trying to get out of her one-year lease.

Murder is not exactly a fact of life in San Leandro, where the murder rate this year is only 2.5 for every 100,000 people. That’s a far cry from neighboring Oakland’s murder rate, an astonishing 30.6 murders for every 100,000 people - more than 120 murders, total. While Oakland has five times as many people as San Leandro, its murder rate is more than 10 times higher.

At 2:47 a.m. on September 11, Ilustre’s longtime companion Wayne Milenewicz found her lying on the floor of their apartment. He quickly realized she was dead and reported to authorities that she had fallen on the stairs that lead up to the apartment.

But after examining her body, San Leandro police determined that Illustre, a 5-foot-2, 46-year-old Filipina woman, had been murdered.

Lt. Mark DeCoulode told reporters that Ilustre appeared to have struggled with someone and that investigators suspect she died of blunt-force trauma. Police have declined to reveal further details and a coroner’s report is not yet available.

Police have made no arrests.

Ilustre was last seen alive by her next-door-neighbor, who spotted her walking at 9:30 p.m. A second neighbor said that Jackie heard something from Ilustre’s apartment around 10 p.m., though Jackie declined to discuss the details of that night.

Sonia Ilustre wanted to establish a neighborhood watch program, said Alfonso Corona, 36, who lives a few houses away. It apparently did not get off the ground. “Everybody watches out for everybody, anyway,” Corona said.

There is not much crime in the area, said Sgt. Jeff Jouanicot, who is investigating Ilustre’s death. Corona agreed, noting that most of the crime in the area is committed by young people who vandalize yards or speed through the neighborhood.
Homeless people frequently visited Ilustre’s apartment because Milenewicz often reached out to them, said a neighbor who wished to remain unidentified. He said that local residents wanted Milenewicz to move because he was attracting so many homeless to the neighborhood. Jouanicot acknowledged that the investigation was looking into this. Milenewicz said he planned to move at the end of the month.

Ilustre was not involved in any questionable activities, added Jouanicot. On the contrary, she was an active member of the nearby 140-year-old St. Leander Church, according to church employees. She was also active with the larger Oakland Diocese, said Sandy Donahue, a secretary in the parish offices.

Ilustre’s funeral was held at St. Leander in a huge ceremony before a large gathering, said Milenewicz. “[O]ne of her wishes was to have a big funeral,” he said.

But Milenewicz also described a darker side to Ilustre.

They had been together for 12 years and their relationship was love at first sight, but Ilustre also had difficulty controlling her emotions and would erupt without warning, according to Milenewicz.

“She had a violent part of her nature,” he said.

Because of that, their relationship was in trouble at the time of Ilustre’s death.

Milenewicz said he was planning to leave Ilustre and put an end to the relationship. He indicated a faint scar on his nose that he claimed was the result of Ilustre scratching his face with her fingernails in the weeks before she died.

He added that Ilustre repeatedly threatened to kill him in his sleep. Her violent character was the reason why the two children they had together were ultimately put into foster care, he said.

Despite their troubles, Milenewicz misses Ilustre and claims to feel her presence. “I feel like she’s still with me. Spiritually, she’s still with me, she’s in heaven. She’s like a saint now. It’s Saint Sonia.”

Whatever Ilustre’s character may have been, police are tight-lipped about the investigation. Milenewicz voiced frustration with the police, saying that they have interviewed him twice, but that he has heard nothing else.

Local residents feel just as anxious for information. “I hope they find out what happened,” said one. “Not knowing what happened, all the neighbors are on edge.”