Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced on Nov. 18 that a Yonkers man has pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter for running over his estranged wife with a vehicle and stabbing her with a machete in front her two grandchildren in 2019.

In the context of the announcement, Clark said, “The defendant and the victim, his wife, had been estranged for approximately a month when he mercilessly killed her in front of her two young grandchildren and bystanders in broad daylight. The victim’s grandchildren not only had to deal with the loss of their grandmother, but also with immense trauma after witnessing such cruel events. He pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in January 2022 to 23 years prison.”

The district attorney said the defendant, Victor Mateo, 65, last of 4 Eastman Place, Yonkers, N.Y., a former pastor at the Christian Congregation The Redeemer Church in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Nov. 17, before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy. He is due to be sentenced on Jan. 5, 2022 to 23 years in prison and five years’ post-release supervision, with final orders of protection for the victim’s two grandchildren who witnessed the killing.

According to the investigation, on the morning of October 3, 2019, the defendant parked his vehicle near the home of Noelia Mateo, 58, on Ellsworth Avenue in Throgs Neck. As the victim left her house to drive her grandchildren to school, Mateo struck her with his vehicle. The victim hid beneath her car, and the defendant got into her vehicle and ran her over with it. He then hacked her with a machete. The victim was taken to Jacobi Medical Center where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Her grandchildren, who were 11 and nine years old at the time, witnessed the entire attack.

 

The defendant fled the scene in the victim’s vehicle and was arrested on October 10, 2019 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.

 

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney William Browne of the Domestic Violence Bureau, under the supervision of Adrienne Giunta, deputy chief of the special victims division, and Joseph Muroff, chief of the special victims division.

Clark thanked Assistant District Attorney Allison Kline and Assistant District Attorney Megan Leo, both of the domestic violence bureau, for their assistance in the investigation, as well as NYPD Detective Francis Orlando from the Bronx homicide unit and NYPD Detective Kristopher Persaud of the 45^th precinct.