NEW YORK – A man has been sentenced to 25 years to life for murdering his mother-in-law and the grandmother of his children inside an apartment in the Bronx in the presence of their three minors, District Attorney Darcel D. Clark.
Angel Montañez, 42, committed the murder in 2019 and was sentenced by Wastchester County Supreme Court Judge James McCarty. The defendant was found guilty of second degree murder by a jury on May 25, 2022 after a trial before Judge McCarty.
“The defendant killed his children’s grandmother while her three children were at her home. Two of them witnessed the murder and live with that trauma. A jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and he will spend many years in prison for destroying so many lives in one heinous act,” said DA Clark.
The heinous crime occurred on July 3, 2019, at around 3:00 am, when Montañez was in the apartment of the victim, Lidia Herrera, 65, on Sheridan Avenue, according to the investigation. Both began to argue when Montañez’s children and Herrera’s grandchildren were inside the residence: a 4-year-old girl and two boys, 6 and 10 years old.
At that point, Montanez hit Herrera in the head and then strangled her by wrapping an HDMI cable around her neck. The incident took place in a room near where the victim’s grandchildren slept, the investigation says.
The argument and fight woke up two of the children who went to see their grandmother and witnessed the murder. Herrera was declared dead at the scene. The victim sustained a fracture of the hyoid bone and thyroid cartilage, and she sustained abrasions and bruises to her face and body.
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