A New York City man is facing 25 years to life in prison if convicted on murder and other charges that allege that he “attacked his mother with a machete – to the point of near-decapitation.”
via People:
The victim, Maria Diaz, was 78.
The alleged assailant, 46-year-old Osvaldo Diaz, is a former officer of the New York City Police Department, reports the New York Post.
He entered a plea of not guilty, and his attorney, Jose Nieves, has requested a psychiatric evaluation for his client, reports NBC New York.
The attack on Feb. 24, 2021, took place in an apartment that the man and his mother shared above a beauty salon in Queens, the borough’s District Attorney Melinda Katz said in a news release Thursday announcing the charges.
According to Katz, the accused man’s sister had planned with her mother to run errands and take a walk together. But when the sister arrived at the apartment and called her mother’s cell phone numerous times, there was no answer.
Eventually Osvaldo Diaz picked up and told his sister to go to the store alone. When she returned, she was again met with unanswered calls, prompting her to summon the landlord for access into the apartment.
There, she discovered her mother’s bleeding body wrapped in bedding, and her brother gone. According to the indictment, video surveillance recorded him leaving the apartment after his sister left for the store.
The victim was declared dead at the scene. No motive was given for the alleged murder.
The prosecutor’s office says the alleged killer was on the run for a week before he was caught in New Jersey, where he remained until he was returned last week to Queens for his arraignment on a charge of second-degree murder. He also faces two counts of fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
“This outburst of violence has devastated the victim’s family, which includes her other six children,” Katz said in her statement.
The suspect was ordered held in jail without bail. An attorney who might speak for him was not immediatly identified.
What a psycho.
