A Bronx, New York pastor who took his car and ran over his wife and stabbed her with a machete and later pleaded guilty to his crimes has been sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Victor Mateo, a 65 year old pastor who led the Christian Congregation The Redemptor, Inc. in the Bronx, "not only took the life of a Bronx grandmother but also inflicted a possible lifetime of trauma to her grandchildren who were witnesses to this horrific crime."
These were the exact words Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said as Judge Margaret Clancy of Bronx Supreme Court handed down the 23-year prison sentence to the pastor, the Christian Post reported. The sentence also included five years worth of post-release supervision, according to the prosecutors.
NBC New York reported in October 2019 that Mateo was indicted in the brutal killing of his estranged wife on the morning of October 3 a little before 7 a.m. Mateo had parked his car outside the Throgs Neck home of his estranged wife, Noelia Mateo. When she left the home along Ellsworth Avenue to drive her two grandchildren to school, Victor hit her with his car and then used her car under which she tried to hide, to run over her.
Noelia lay on the ground after getting hit as Victor went back to his car to get a machete, which he then used to stab the woman several times in front of their 11 year old grandson and nine year old granddaughter. He then used her car to flee the scene.
Victor was later apprehended on October 10 in Hazleton, Pennsylvania and extradited back to New York after a joint effort by U.S. Marshals and the Pennsylvania State Police.
In November 2021, he pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree manslaughter for killing his estranged wife. The older of the two grandchildren, who is now 13, claimed that he still remembers his grandmother's death "like it was yesterday," New York Daily News reported.
"Victor Mateo stole my grandmother and my innocence. I lost so much within a few hours; I had nightmares and PTSD," he explained. In referring to his grandmother, he said, "She was a beautiful lady with a man who was horrendously controlling and not what he vowed to do when marrying her. His animalistic act against my grandmother was done in cold blood."
Noelia's son, Kenneth Zunigia Fernandez said in a statement that Victor demanded that she give him her earnings from her cheesecake business. When she refused, he threatened her with violence. Fernandez explained, "Mateo used the Bible, religion and his 'pastor' role to manipulate not only my mother, but his church members."
Neighbors who witnessed the gruesome murder saw Noelia covered in blood and bleeding profusely, crawling from the street to a patch of grass on the curb while "praying in Spanish," all while her grandchildren looked on in shock. Paramedics found her unconscious and was later pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
