Ohio woman charged with fatally stabbing Chicago teacher

FORT WAYNE, Ind. - An Ohio woman with a history of prostitution and battery has been charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a business teacher with Chicago's Brother Rice High School, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Alisha M. Walker, 20, of Akron, Ohio, is accused of stabbing to death 61-year-old Alan Filan in his Orland Park, Ill. home on Saturday, Jan. 18. She is being held without bail in Allen County Jail in Indiana on a first-degree murder warrant until a hearing on Feb. 10.

The Chicago Tribune reports Walker was arrested in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Walker waived extradition back to Illinois on Monday and will at some point be returned to Cook County for arraignment on the charge of first-degree murder, the Cook County clerk said.

Filan was found dead on his kitchen floor by police around 10:35 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, after they were called when the teacher failed to show up for work. The Cook County medical examiner's office said he had been stabbed multiple times.

"Walker confessed to being at the home of the victim on Jan. 18 after Filan contacted her via the Internet site Backpage," said Orland Park police. "Walker and Filan argued over money, a struggle ensued, which resulted in Walker stabbing Filan multiple times."

"Alisha told me she had to [stab Filan]" said Sherri Chatman, mother of the accused. "[T]here was nothing else she could do. The only way I see my baby doing that is if she was in danger, in harm. It was either him or her. I think she freaked out."

According to Ed Hensley, Walker's uncle, a third party was present at Filan's home when the incident occurred. Hensley said that Walker, who spoke with him over the phone from the Allen County Jail, told him that she and another woman who also worked at an escort service were at the house.

"They had some sort of two-for-one special and went over there," Hensley told the Sun-Times. "This guy got upset because it wasn't what the Internet suggested, or whatever. My understanding is the guy wielded a knife at the other girl, and then my niece freaked out, took the knife from him and then stabbed him with it to keep [the other woman] from getting stabbed."

"There was another woman who traveled to the home with the suspect," Orland Park Police Comdr. John Keating confirmed in an e-mail to the paper on Sunday. Keating said that the other woman is not a suspect.