Woman, 23, stabbed dead in Staten Island home, boyfriend sought for questioning

Nicholas Williams, Rocco Parascandola, Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News
Updated ·2 min read

A 23-year-old woman was stabbed to death in her Staten Island apartment — and her boyfriend is being sought for questioning, police said Thursday.

A friend of the victim called 911 at 10:06 p.m. Wednesday asking cops to check on the victim after hearing her arguing with her boyfriend, police said.

When officers got to the victim’s second-floor apartment on Van Name Ave. near Forest Ave. in Mariners Harbor they found Evelin Barajas Perez on the floor of her bedroom in a pool of blood dead from multiple stab wounds to her back, neck and arms.

A bloody knife was recovered at the scene, police said. A small trail of blood could be seen coming from inside the apartment to the outer hallway.

Neighbors said Barajas Perez had moved into the apartment building with her boyfriend about three months ago. The couple lived with the boyfriend’s brother and another woman.

The victim and her boyfriend constantly argued, one neighbor recalled.

“All the time since I met them, she would complain that he was very violent and abusive,” said the neighbor, who didn’t give her name out of fear of retribution from the boyfriend. “It seems like she was still in love with him.”

The boyfriend had become so violent that his brother’s girlfriend moved out, the neighbor said.

Barajas Perez was a young mother but her two boys — the oldest 6, the youngest 5 — lived with relatives in Mexico. She worked at a local restaurant as a waitress, the neighbor said.

Resident Andreas Giraldo, 50, described Barajas Perez as “quiet” and “respectful.”

“I was coming home from work and I just seen police cars outside,” Giraldo, 50, said. “It’s scary. I have a wife and a daughter and I work. I (was) just worried if it was a break in.”

Other building residents were left shaken by the bloody scene.

“That was really surprising, I don’t know what to say,” said another tenant who wished not to be named. “It’s scary to think it happened in the building.”

Cops are working to track down the boyfriend for questioning.