In October 2024, Eliana Bigoni posed proudly before an American flag, her husband Jake smiling beside her as their two young sons stood with them to mark what she called her “great achievement.”
The Colombian-born mother had just become a US citizen, and she celebrated the moment online by reflecting on the promise and opportunity she believed America had given her. “Building my family is and will be the most important thing in my life,” she wrote.
Less than two years later, the life she had been so determined to build was shattered.
Eliana, 34, was found dead inside the Plano, Texas, apartment of her estranged husband, 37-year-old Jake, after police were called to conduct a welfare check.
The pair had separated and were in the midst of divorce proceedings. That morning, Eliana had gone to Jake’s apartment to pick up their two sons, who are two and five years old.
When officers arrived on August 12, Jake came to the door in a shirt marked with stains he described as cleaning residue. Investigators later confirmed the stains were blood.
He was taken into custody and first booked on a felony charge of abuse of a corpse. Authorities later added a murder charge. Friends have since alleged that Eliana endured a troubling pattern of controlling behavior.
Now, Our News Outlet can reveal new details about the couple, including insight from a friend who knew Jake while he was growing up in Oregon and described him as a social outsider who struggled intensely to form friendships.
In happier times: Eliana Bigoni celebrated becoming a US citizen with her husband Jake and two boys
The stylish and entrepreneurial Eliana learned English from online videos and launched a pet grooming business in Nevada
A friend from Jake’s teenage years in West Linn, Oregon, described him as a socially awkward loner who had almost no friends and only one known romantic interest before he met Eliana.
‘This Jake who is now in jail – this is not the Jake that I ever knew,’ one old friend told Our News Outlet, speaking on condition of anonymity.
‘It hurts to know that it’s not just him and her that are affected. It’s the kids. It’s her family,’ the friend added, struggling to reconcile the two versions of the man he once knew.
Others who knew Jake as a teenager called him ‘weird’ and said they were not shocked by the allegation that he murdered his estranged wife.
But this particular friend insisted he never once witnessed anything ‘mean’ in Jake, a six-footer who weighed 190lbs.
He pointed instead to a chaotic, unstable family life during Jake’s teenage years.
‘I made a conscious effort to try and include him in things, because he didn’t have a lot of friends, and I wanted him to not feel excluded,’ the friend said.
‘I put in all this time and I invested my energy, and it frickin hurts that others were right about him, and I was probably wrong.’
In August, Eliana was found dead inside the apartment of her estranged husband Jake
Concerned friends of Eliana called police after she went missing and failed to return messages
Jake is believed to have met Eliana, a law graduate from Bogota, in Las Vegas shortly after she arrived in the US in 2016. She went on to launch her own pet grooming business there.
The pair married and started a family, moving through St Paul, Minnesota, and central Florida before settling in Texas in the middle of last year in search of new opportunities.
Jake cycled through various jobs, including a stint as a delivery driver for a soft drinks company, while Eliana reinvented herself as a property broker, proudly posting about her closed deals online.
On the surface, the couple looked the picture of success – stylishly dressed, doting on two adorable boys, sharing an upscale rented townhouse in the suburbs north of Dallas.
But Our News Outlet has learned that behind closed doors, the marriage was crumbling fast. Eliana had already moved out of the apartment, and friends say a divorce was firmly on the cards.
Friends reportedly alleged Jake had turned violent toward Eliana in the past and displayed a pattern of controlling, possessive behavior that alarmed those closest to her.
One friend, Andrea Peters, told NBC that just days before the killing, she and a group of friends gathered to celebrate Eliana’s birthday on July 31.
The celebration soured, Peters said, when Jake showed up uninvited and unannounced, demanding that Eliana come home with him immediately.
Jake and Eliana Bigoni were navigating a divorce in Plano, Texas, according to Eliana’s friend, who called police the day she died asking for a welfare check
Jake Bigoni, 37, is charged with murder and abusing a corpse. He’s being held at the Collin County Jail north of Dallas
Eliana Bigoni was supposed to pick her sons and drop them off at school the morning of her death, according to authorities
Peters described his manner that night as menacing and controlling.
By early August, Eliana had moved out to stay with friends. On the morning of August 12, she was due to collect her two boys from Jake’s apartment as usual.
A friend who had been checking in on Eliana grew alarmed when she failed to appear for an 8.30am breakfast meeting and stopped answering calls and texts entirely.
That friend alerted police, prompting the welfare check. Officers arrived at the apartment around 10.30am and found Jake standing in the doorway with blood on his shirt.
Eliana’s body was discovered in the trunk of a white Hyundai parked in the apartment’s garage. She had suffered major damage to her head and face.
The couple’s two young sons were inside the apartment throughout the alleged attack but were found physically unharmed, police said. Officers removed them from the scene.
Roughly half an hour before the welfare check began, Jake’s mother, Kathleen, 68, who lives in Seattle, had already called police herself with an urgent warning, police said.
She told them her son had phoned her moments earlier with shocking news: ‘I have something to tell you. She’s dead. We got in a fight and she’s dead.’
Kathleen declined to speak to Our News Outlet when contacted for this story.
Eliana’s death is far from an isolated tragedy. Intimate partner violence devastates millions of American women every single year, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More than one in three women nationwide will suffer physical violence, rape or stalking at the hands of a partner at some point in their lives.
That abuse translates into roughly 2 million injuries annually, plus more than 1,000 deaths – a grim reminder that tragedies play out again and again across the country.
Tributes have poured in for Eliana from friends in Dallas and relatives back home in Colombia, all remembering an elegant, ambitious young woman determined to build a better life.
In several tributes, Eliana is described as someone who worked punishing hours to get ahead in her adopted country, spending her rare spare moments teaching herself English through online videos.
Jake’s shirt had a blood stain on it and the apartment was covered with blood when officers arrived, according to an affidavit from the Plano Police Department
Before moving to Dallas, Eliana has previously worked as a relator in Orlando
Eliana posted that she was ‘proud’ to be an American and lauded the opportunities in her new country
In the post marking her citizenship, Eliana declared her love for both her adopted homeland and the Colombia she left behind. But above all, she said, she loved her boys.
‘They are my engine, what inspires me to continue growing and to continue idealizing a better future day by day,’ she wrote in words that now read as unbearably poignant.
While tributes to Eliana’s memory grow, Jake remains locked up at the Collin County Jail after a judge denied him bond.
He now faces charges of both abuse of a corpse and murder. He has yet to enter a plea and appoint an attorney.
His old friend from Oregon called it a stunning collapse for a man who, until recently, appeared to be the head of a loving, photogenic family.
‘I’ve been praying a lot that Jake can still find a way to be saved,’ he added, still struggling to make peace with what his old friend is accused of doing.
