An ex-boyfriend of the mother of four savagely stabbed to death in the hallway of her Harlem apartment building has been charged with murder in her slaying, police said.
Luis Marquez, who had been drinking, felt disrespected since he felt Lopez was the love of his life but she didn’t feel the same, police sources said.
The pair had been embroiled in an on-and-off-again relationship, sources said.
Dressed in jeans pants and a brown hoodie, Marquez held his head down and refused to answer reporters’ questions as he was escorted out of the 26 Precinct by detectives Tuesday evening.
He’s accused of lying in wait in the building’s stairwell for more than two hours before stabbing Carmen Yadira Lopez more than 20 times all over her body after she stepped off the elevator on her floor around 4:25 a.m. Monday. She could be heard desperately pleading with Marquez not to attack her, neighbors told the Daily News.
Marquez, 31, is facing murder charges for the slaying inside the victim’s building on W. 129th St. near St. Nicholas Terrace. He was taken into custody later on Monday.
“You could hear her screaming, ‘Stop, Luis!’ ‘Luis, stop!’” said building porter Lyron Middleton, who found Lopez’s body after starting his work shift Monday, and had listened to surveillance footage that captured the attack.
“She was on the floor and I saw the blood,” he said. “Her face and her hand was all bloody. She still had her keys in her hands. Her eyes were wide open. She was faceup … I called 911. I never seen anything like it.”
Zameon Price, 35, a public school dean who lives in the building, also heard Lopez’s heartbreaking pleas for help.
“She was screaming … ‘Leave me alone! Get away from me! Help! Stop!’” he said. “I thought it was regular people fighting. … Thinking about it now, I feel bad (that) I could’ve possibly helped, I could’ve possibly stopped him.”
Marquez was caught on surveillance cameras waiting in a stairwell by the building’s third floor before he jumped Lopez as she stepped off the elevator, police sources said.
Medics rushed her to Mount Sinai Morningside hospital but she could not be saved after suffering multiple stab wounds.
“She was a great mother and a great human being,” Lucy Lopez, the victim’s sister, said. “She loved our family and she loved life. We don’t know how to start over.”
Following the bloody attack, Marquez went to Lincoln Hospital to get treated for minor cuts and bruises he sustained during the attack. Police were tipped off he was there when he made incriminating statements to hospital staff, and arrested him there, sources said.
Marquez was hospitalized overnight for psychiatric evaluation before being returned to the 26th Precinct stationhouse for questioning Tuesday. His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was expected Wednesday.
Marquez, who lives in the Highbridge section of the Bronx, had no prior arrests, sources said.
Carmen was a mother of four, with two of her kids, ages 7 and 14, still living at home, and two adult sons who live elsewhere. She shared the apartment with her mother, with the family having lived in the building for decades.
“She was a very nice person,” the building’s distraught super said.
“I knew her for a long time. Her mother used to watch my son when my son was little.”
The killing was the first time police were alerted to the apparently tumultuous relationship between Lopez and Marquez, police sources said. Lopez had never filed an assault or harassment claim against Marquez.
The building super, who wished not to be named, watched surveillance video showing the slaying but declined to describe to reporters what he had seen.
“I saw her on the cameras when the problem happened,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
