Estranged husband charged with murder in 1997 death of Yonkers mother of 2
Yonkers police suspected from the outset that it was Nusinaida Ramos’ estranged husband who killed her more than 26 years ago.
But it wasn’t until now that they finally made their case against Rafael Ramos.
A grand jury on Wednesday charged the former Sing Sing corrections officer with second-degree murder in the March 9, 1997, beating and strangulation death of the 34-year-old mother of his two young children.
Ramos, 54, was arrested at his home in Sleepy Hollow by Yonkers police officers, including Det. Vionett Martinez of the cold case unit that had pursued the case for more than a decade.
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The case was also picked up over the past year by the Cold Case Bureau of the Westchester District Attorney’s Office, whose top prosecutor Daniel Flecha presented the case to the grand jury. There was no immediate information about what if any new evidence had been generated for them to seek an indictment.
Nusinaida was an unemployed immigrant from the Dominican Republic who lived with the children in the second-floor apartment at 98 Colin St.
Ramos and his girlfriend picked up his 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter on the morning of Sunday, March 9 in 1997. When they brought them back that night there was no answer at the door. A young neighbor also got no response when she knocked to borrow a cooking utensil.
The following day, after relatives had not heard from Nusinaida, they accompanied police to her apartment. The door was locked and Spanish music was blaring from the radio, as it had been since the day before.
When police entered, they found her, in T-shirt and shorts, on the floor of the living room. It appeared there had been a violent struggle, with the furniture in disarray and three broken fingernails near the body. Clothes were on the floor and in the washing machine and detectives believe she was doing laundry when she let Ramos into the apartment.
Detectives never publicly identified Rafael Ramos, but in the early 2000s they said they had a prime suspect. Relatives of the victim said at the time they had been told that prosecutors were reluctant to proceed without a confession.
Vincent deMarte, Ramos' Legal Aid lawyer, entered the not guilty plea and said he was not ready to request bail. Westchester County Judge George Fufidio ordered Ramos held at the Westchester County jail.
The victim's mother was in court for the arraignment but declined through prosecutors to comment afterwards.
Reached in Florida, Nusinaida's sister-in-law, Eva Beauchamps, said she and her husband Freddy were in shock when they got the call Wednesday that Ramos was in custody.
"I thought I was going to the grave with nothing ever happening in this case," she told The Journal News/lohud after the arraignment. "It's been a long time coming ... She was so vibrant, so beautiful. You could be having the worst day ever and she made you laugh 'til your cheeks hurt."
She said that compounding the grief over Nusinaida's death was the resulting estrangement from her children.
"I lost my niece and nephew when I lost my sister-in-law," she said.
Ramos' daughter, now 29, declined to comment when reached by phone.
While prosecutors would not address possible motives for the decades-old crime, Beauchamps said Ramos was "extremely angry" at the time of the killing because Nusinaida was seeking increased child support and considering a move to Florida.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Yonkers NY mother death: Estranged husband charged with murder
