By Sarina Trangle
Shortly before the Empire State Building was slated to glow violet in honor of domestic violence awareness month, Queens prosecutors heralded a guilty plea in one of the borough’s most notorious such crimes in recent memory.
Queens DA Richard Brown said a 28-year-old Jamaica man pleaded guilty Friday to stabbing his wife to death while she slept last winter and then fatally turning the knife on his two young daughters.
Brown said Miguel Mejia-Ramos, 28, pleaded guilty to three first-degree manslaughter charges in the killing of his wife Deisy Garcia, 21; their 2-year-old, Daniela Mejia; and 1-year-old, Yoselin Mejia.
“Today’s guilty plea by the defendant will bring some degree of closure to the family of the victims,” Brown said in a statement released Friday. “The case against him is now over. The defendant has waived his right to appeal. He has accepted his fate that he will quite likely spend the rest of his days in prison and never see the light of day again.”
Brown said Queens Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Holder indicated he would sentence Mejia-Ramos to 45 years in prison at his Nov. 7 court date.
Mejia-Ramos’ attorney could not immediately be reached for comment.
Prosecutors said Mejia-Ramos told police he returned to his second-floor apartment on Sutphin Boulevard after drinking Jan. 18, looked through his wife’s phone, discovered a photo of her with another man and grew enraged. He grabbed a kitchen knife from the butcher’s block and stabbed his wife to death as she slept in bed, the DA said.
He then hugged and kissed his toddlers, asked for forgiveness and used the blade to kill them, prosecutors said.
The bodies were discovered the next day by Garcia’s 12-year-old cousin and other relatives who shared the apartment with the couple.
Police named Mejia-Ramos as a suspect and released information about two vehicles he was known to have driven to the U.S. Marshals Service.
Ultimately Mejia-Ramos, a Mexico native, was cuffed in Schulenburg, Texas, which is about 250 miles from the border with Mexico, police said.
On Wednesday, Mayor de Blasio, First Lady Chirlane McCray and Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence Commissioner Rose Pierre-Louis were scheduled to illuminate the Empire State Building for NYC Go Purple Day in honor of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The building was to be bathed in purple.
Reach reporter Sarina Trangle at 718-260-4546 or by e-mail at strangle@cnglocal.com.
