A Queens man, who bludgeoned his former girlfriend to death in front of two of her children, has been convicted of her murder.
Elmer Diaz, 39, faces 25 years to life in prison for the 2009 attack in which he repeatedly struck Indira Villa, 38, with a 2 x 4 piece of lumber, in her Rockaway home.
Villa’s, two children, a teenage son from a prior relationship and the 3-year-old daughter she shared with Diaz, looked on in horror as he attacked their mother. According to trial testimony, Denzel Carrero came to his mother’s defense when he came out of his room and saw that Diaz was restraining his mother with one arm while holding “something shiny” in his other hand. “I can kill your mother,” Diaz told the boy.
According to trial testimony, Denzel ran back into his room, got a 2×4 and returned to the living room where he struck Diaz across the head and back. But his mother’s attacker fought him off and grabbed the wood from him, using it to strike Villa over the head in front of both Denzel and his sister.
The child grabbed his sister and fled to a neighbor’s house. Police arrived shortly after the neighbor called them and found Villa on the floor of her residence. She was rushed to Jamaica Hospital where she underwent surgery to remove the pressure on her brain but she was unable to be saved. A subsequent autopsy revealed that she had died of blunt force trauma to the head with multiple skull fractures and brain injuries.
“The defendant has been convicted of a horrific murder which he carried out in front of the victim’s two young children, one of whom was his own child. Such a vicious act of violence demonstrates that the defendant is a threat to society and deserving of a lengthy prison sentence.”
A two-week jury trial heard by Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael D. Aloise ended with a conviction for second-degree murder and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Diaz has been in prison and was held without bail since he was arrested in September 2009. He will be sentenced on August 6.
