Prosecutors on Saturday night backed up what family members of tragic victim Pamela Alcantara have been saying — that her boyfriend allegedly killed her in retaliation for planning to break off their relationship.
Alcantara’s body was found Thursday stuffed in a suitcase in a shallow creek in a Yonkers park off the Saw Mill Parkway, four days after she had been reported missing.
Junior Perez Diaz, 46, who is charged with murder and kidnapping of his girlfriend, Alcantara, 26, stood before Judge Craig Ortner at his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court Saturday night. Deeming him a flight risk, Ortner declared he is to be held without bail, with a grand jury date set for March 13.
Prosecutors revealed that Perez Diaz allegedly became aware of Alcantara’s plans to break off the relationship after recording her and then held Alcantara at their apartment on Morris Ave. near E. 179th St. in Morris Heights, preventing her from leaving the place on March 2 from around 2 a.m. to 5 p.m. She was last seen at 2 a.m.
“It wasn’t working out,” Alcantara’s brother, Isacc Lopez, told The News on Thursday, the day before Diaz’s arrest. “She wanted to leave.”
According to Lopez, Perez Diaz was “obsessed” with Alcantara. Alcantara and Perez Diaz had been together for about five years, but the woman recently told family she needed to move out of the apartment.
Raising family members’ fears and suspicions, Alcantara missed a phone call and a church planning event she was expected to attend, according to the criminal complaint.
Perez Diaz allegedly kept the victim’s body in their apartment until he dragged her out in a red suitcase and eventually dumped it in the Yonkers park. After Perez Diaz returned from disposing of the body, he found that Alcantara’s family and friends were looking for her and told them he hadn’t see her. Then “he intentionally misled police,” prosecutors said.
Pamela Alcantara. (Courtesy Isacc Lopez)
Perez Diaz initially told police officers that he did not know where Alcantara was, according to a police source. “He told cops she left in pajamas in the middle of the night,” a source said.
Alcantara was found with bruising to her head, neck and arm, and her cause of death was “homicidal asphyxiation” according to prosecutors.
“My little girl was so devout,” Alcantara’s bereaved mother, Sunilda Rubiera, said at a vigil for her daughter on Friday evening. “She wanted to save souls. She wanted to serve God. She wanted to help people find salvation. She just wanted to live a life of service.”
Alcantara had recently told Rubiera she was a victim of domestic violence and was planning to leave Perez Diaz, Rubiera said. The mother said her daughter didn’t tell her sooner because she didn’t want to trouble her. There was “nothing alarming” in their last FaceTime conversation the day before Alcantara went missing, during which Alcantara showed off a new dress she planned to wear on an upcoming trip, Rubiera said.
Neighbors of Alcantara’s Morris Ave. apartment building knew something was wrong when Alcantara never showed up to her church, Concilio Cristiano Dios en Medio de la Familia, on White Plains Road in Wakefield on Sunday. Neighbors soon banded together to look for Alcantara. A relative at the vigil on Friday told The News that Perez Diaz even pretended to help with the search.
“He helped put up flyers in the neighborhood when she went missing,” said the relative, who did not give their name.
Rubiera shared a message for other women experiencing domestic abuse: “Don’t be silent. Don’t be intimidated. Speak out,” she urged. “Don’t be fooled by empty promises. When they say they’re going to change, this is what they do.”