A woman brutally murdered and left in the stairwell of a Bronx apartment building was tied up and tortured by her boyfriend before her death, enduring horrific depravity that included being stabbed and beaten, police said Thursday.
On Thursday night, police announced that the murder suspect’s mother now has also been hit with charges, including murder, concealment of a corpse and tampering with physical evidence.
Autopsy results on Princesa Incarnacion-Soto, 21, showed both old and new bruises on the tragic victim, an indication to cops that her violent death was the latest in a long line of abuse that culminated in her grisly death.
“She is beaten up so bad that we started the autopsy yesterday,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny, [and] it is still going on.”
Investigators said Incarnacion-Soto and her boyfriend, Robert Strother, had broken up and that she had gone to Rhode Island, where her parents live before returning to the Bronx.
“My daughter was beautiful. Beautiful,“ said the victim’s mother, Jecibelle Soto, 39, from her home in Rhode Island. “She was a good person, a good daughter, a good sister, and a good friend“
“She was not supposed to die like that,“ she said through tears. Soto said that her daughter had been in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend for more than two years but had recently ended things.
Police are looking for Strother and have probable cause to arrest him, Kenny said.
“They were together for almost three years. She met him of Instagram,“ she said. “He said he loved her.”
“My daughter left him and came home,” Soto said. “He called and said I love you and I won’t do that again. Come back.”
On July 11 Incarnacion-Soto moved back into the Bronx apartment, where indications point to her life becoming a living hell.
Police had said there was no reported history of domestic violence between the victim and her 26-year-old boyfriend, but officials said the bruises showed otherwise. Kenny also said the boyfriend had 22 domestic violence incidents reported against him, but none involving the victim.
“We believe that she was tied down to the bed, based on the blood that was on the bed. The wounds themselves were inflicted for pain not to kill,” Kenny said.
“There are slice marks on her thighs, slice marks on her upper arms and shoulders. The ones on her legs were fresh. The ones on her upper torso seemed like they were in the process of healing.”
Cops said they believe the victim was tortured and possibly tied up since she had bruising on her arms, legs and face, as well as cuts on her right arm and back.
She suffered multiple stab and puncture wounds and razor markings and had been beaten with a hammer, police sources said.
Police recovered a bloody rope, bungee cord, clothing, blankets and underpants from the crime scene, Kenny said. Cops also recovered surveillance video from the building showing the boyfriend leaving the location, he said.
The boyfriend’s 54-year-old mother, Naida Jorge, was taken in for questioning after she was seen dropping off a black garbage bag near the building’s boiler room after the victim was discovered, neighbors said.
Inside the bag were bloody clothes and cleaning supplies, according to neighbors. No charges were immediately filed against her.
“She did attempt to clean up the crime scene,” Kenny said of Jorge. “There was no blood on [the victim]. There was no blood on her as she lay on the staircase and she was in fresh clothing that had no blood on it. So it’s a possibility that someone cleaned the body, put fresh clothes on her and threw her down a flight of stairs.”
Jorge initially let police officers into her apartment, where she lived with her son and the victim. But when cops spotted blood on the mattress, she told them to leave, Kenny said. They returned with a search warrant.
“There was a smell of fresh bleach in the area. The apartment was not the tidiest but in only certain spots was the bleach used to clean,” Kenny said.
Days after Incarnacion-Soto’s death, neighbors let loose about the tenants in the fourth-floor Grand Concourse unit where the bloody trail began.
“They’re troublemakers,” said neighbor Beverly Williams, 63. “They do everything — mess with people, lie on people, start trouble with people.”
Several weeks ago, Williams said, a woman came to the building looking for her missing daughter, saying a trace on her phone had led her to the Bronx.
Soto confirmed she had been there looking for her daughter, but ultimately wasn’t able to locate her and returned home.
“I want him and his mother to go to prison for life,” said Soto. “The mother knew what was going on and she didn’t call the police. She did nothing.”
“She was my heart. And my heart is broken,” she said of her daughter, dissolving into tears. “I want justice.”
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