A Brooklyn teen found out her beloved dad had been stabbed to death when her brother-in-law called her to confess, telling her, “I thought I was doing you a favor,” she told the Daily News Monday.
The 18-year-old daughter said she received the chilling call on Thursday from Albert Torres, who was later arrested for stabbing her 49-year-old father to death and leaving her mother, also 49, critically wounded in the family’s Bergen Beach home.
Her dad was knifed 19 times while her mom was stabbed more than 40 times, according to the criminal complaint against Torres, 35.
“He called me and he admitted what he had done to my family. He called a lot of my family members,” said the daughter, who asked that her name not be used. “He was calling from his number. He was very calm. He’s a psychopath. I don’t know how a person has the heart to do something like this. … He said, ‘Your father is dead. I killed your father. I thought I was doing you a favor.’”
“I couldn’t believe it. I was like, ‘What did you do, Albert?’ He just kept calling me and calling me,” she added, “I don’t understand what’s wrong with him. He’s insane.”
She called 911 after receiving the disturbing calls.
“I didn’t know what was going on,” she said. I didn’t know if he was just trying to scare me. But I told them I needed the ambulance to go [to the home].”
Obtained by Daily News
Suspect Albert Torres (Obtained by Daily News)
Her parents were discovered by first responders wounded inside the home the daughter shares with them on E. 69th St. near Avenue M at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, according to cops.
‘I heard a woman scream,” said one neighbor, who wished not to be named. “It was a high-pitched scream — one scream, and then I didn’t hear anything.”
The stabbed couple stumbled out of the home seeking help as their attacker fled in a blue Toyota SUV, according to neighbors and cops.
By the time the daughter got to her parents’ home, first responders had already arrived. “The second door is a glass door, and I did see the floor,” she said. “It was just covered in blood.”
Juan Manuel Galicia died at Brookdale University Hospital, where his wife was recovering Monday.
“He was very hardworking. He always put us first before himself. He always tried giving us the best life that he possibly could,” the daughter said, breaking down in tears.
“Whenever some hard situation was there or we were struggling with something, he would always tell us, ‘As long as you have me you’re going to be OK. We’re going to get through this.’”
The day of the killing was “just a normal day for us,” she added. Her dad “always dropped me off in the mornings for work and for school. That day he was dropping me off to work.”
About a week ago, Torres got into an argument with the daughter’s older sister, who he has been married to for 12 years, a law enforcement source told The News. The upset older sister went on to move out of the home she shares with the suspect in Sunset Park, taking their 3-year-old son with her to her parents’ home where the slaying later played out.
The suspect’s estranged wife and son weren’t home when he allegedly stabbed her parents.
“I think it was just more of a possession thing,” the teen daughter said of the motive for the attacks. “As in, ‘Oh, she don’t want to be with me no more? Then you can’t be with nobody.’”
Kerry Burke / New York Daily News
Police investigate the scene of the stabbing on E. 69th St. near Avenue M in Bergen Beach. (Kerry Burke/NYDN)
The teen said her sister had been seeking a divorce but was hoping to end their marriage on good terms, with Torres still being able to see their son. “[Torres] had said calmly that this whole situation, the divorce, it was going to go normal, calm,” she said.
“We knew he was a terrible person,” she said of the suspect. “We always knew he was capable of doing something like this. We just never knew that he would go to such extents to harm a family that opened arms for him.”
““From what I know, he didn’t even give my father a chance to fight back,” she added. “My mom’s doing better now. She moved to her own little room. She’s still hospitalized.”
Her mother has been able to start eating soft foods.
“She had to get surgery in her stomach, in her side area,” the teen said. “After her surgery, she’s doing a little better.”
Torres was arrested the day after the slaying and ordered held without bail on charges of murder and attempted murder during his arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Saturday night.
Torres has prior arrests on charges including assault, unlicensed driving and gun and felony drug possession, according to police sources.
His wife was left stunned by the slaying, her sister said.
“I would say she feels very confused. She has a lot of emotions right now,” the teen said. “She was with this person for over 10 years. It’s not something easy. She’s very heartbroken. The whole situation is just very bad.”
With Rocco Parascandola
