NEW YORK – A New York City homeless man who killed his 19-year-old wife inside a Bronx homeless shelter is going to prison fo 20 years.
Ernesto Valerio, 27, was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to first-degree manslaughter in October.
On October 2, 2019, Valero stabbed his wife, Emilsy Calix, 19, in the face, neck and chest with a kitchen knife inside their apartment in 285 East 171st Street.
“The couple’s two-year-old daughter and five-months-old daughter were present. Security guards in the shelter heard screams and went to the apartment,” police said in a report at the time of the incident. “The defendant told them his wife went to the store and one of the children had fallen. As the guards went to the lobby to check the sign-out book, the defendant left the scene, leaving his two children at the shelter. The guards returned to the couple’s apartment and found the body of the victim in the bathtub. The defendant fled and was arrested that night in the Bronx.”
“The defendant stabbed his wife in front of their children. This vicious attack not only took the life of a 19-year-old woman, but also ripped the two children from their mother and caused trauma to staff working to provide services to the defendant at the shelter where the stabbing occurred,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said.