By The newspaper
02 May 2024, 09:28 AM EDT
Melvin Arias, a 57-year-old ex-convict, was accused of beating his mother to death in her apartment in the Bronx (NYC) this week in the same building where another Latina was a homicide victim in 2018.
Arias was arrested at the scene with a knife in his pocket and scratches on his face, prosecutors said yesterday. He was charged with killing his 79-year-old mother during an argument at home and with assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
According to the NYPD, Francisca Trinidad was killed Monday night at her home on Grand Concourse near E. 156th St. Officers responded at 11:23 p.m. after a 911 call from a neighbor who said that he had heard a loud argument and they found the elderly woman dead with a bruised face and bleeding cuts on her hands, he detailed DailyNews.
“The defendant was found at the scene with a knife and fresh scratches on his face that were still bleeding,” prosecutor Michael Pabón said yesterday during Arias’ arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court. The victim “had defensive wounds on his hands and face,” he added.
Prosecutors say Arias hit her mother with both hands and a sharp object, causing the elderly woman to fall and lose consciousness. Prosecutor Pabón added that surveillance video captured the suspect removing a black garbage bag that “contained duct tape, blood and hair.”
Arias has a total of five prior convictions and three failures to appear in court, officials said. He served two and a half years in prison for criminal possession of a weapon and was released in 1995.
All charges are mere accusations and those charged are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
In December 2018, Wendy Martínez, a 45-year-old mother, was shot to death in that same building when an armed man rang her doorbell and shot her through the peephole while she saw who was there. Police then said it was a “street trial” in revenge for a 2014 homicide of which her son had been accused.
Domestic violence is common in New York City and surrounding areas, between relatives, roommates and partners, even with minor victims. Every day in NYC, an average of 747 incidents of domestic violence – including assaults, abuse, verbal abuse – and about 65 homicides are reported annually.
Last week a mother was arrested on suspicion of beating her 6-year-old daughter to death in The Bronx (NYC). Her other two children also showed signs of abuse. Likewise in April a mother was accused of killing her 5-year-old twins in the Bronx.
Last Good Friday, a 9-year-old Latino boy died in a burning car behind a high school in New Jersey and his father, a school employee, was accused of setting the fire after a domestic dispute.
At the end of March, a young 26-year-old athlete was accused of killing her mother by hitting her with a pot in their home in the Bronx. Also that month, a son was arrested on suspicion of fatally beating his mother at her home in New Jersey.
In February, Lasasha Gouldbourne (31) was charged with involuntary manslaughter months after her newborn twin was found stuffed in a laundry bag in the Bronx (NYC). Days later, a man was accused of killing her sister by hitting her several times with a frying pan while she was sitting next to her father at a home in New York.
Also in January, a young 43-year-old Hispanic grandmother was shot to death by her partner, who then committed suicide in the victim’s apartment in Brooklyn (NYC). In early February, a mother died and her two children were injured after a gunman opened fire on the family inside an apartment in the Bronx (NYC).
In January, a man was arrested a day after his mother’s funeral on suspicion of having strangled her at her home in Staten Island (NYC). Also that month, a man and a woman were found dead with gunshot wounds to the head in an apartment in Brooklyn (NYC) in an apparent murder-suicide. Days before, a Hispanic woman killed her daughters and her husband and then took her own life inside her home in Union (NJ) after receiving an eviction order, authorities reported.
If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being abused, especially if it is a minor or elderly:
I looked for help
- Call 911, 988 or (800)-942-6906.
- Text “WELL” to 65173.
- Review information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/ and www.988lineadevida.org