A Bronx man has been indicted for murder after his girlfriend’s body was found stuffed inside a suitcase and dumped on the side of the Saw Mill River Parkway in Yonkers earlier this month, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced Wednesday.
Junior Perez Diaz, 46, who shared a Fordham Heights apartment with the victim, was arraigned in Bronx Supreme Court on charges including second-degree murder, first-degree manslaughter, and first- and second-degree kidnapping in connection to the death of 26-year-old Pamela Alcantara. Justice Audrey Stone ordered that Diaz be held without bail. He is due back in court on April 16.
“The defendant allegedly murdered his girlfriend and then lied to police, saying she left their home on her own,” DA Clark said in a statement. “Her body was found days later in a suitcase along a parkway. His alleged actions are atrocious and terrifying, and we will seek justice for the victim.”
According to the investigation, Alcantara was reported missing on March 2 after she failed to show up for church services. Diaz allegedly told friends and police that Alcantara had left their apartment on her own, wearing pajamas and taking a suitcase with her.
However, surveillance footage showed Alcantara entering their Morris Avenue apartment building around midnight on March 1. Diaz was seen entering the building about two hours later. He was later caught on camera wheeling a red suitcase out of the building and placing it in his car.
Days later, on the morning of March 6, Alcantara’s body was discovered inside that suitcase alongside the parkway. The medical examiner determined she died from homicidal asphyxiation.
Sources said Alcantara had recently been planning to move out of the apartment she shared with Diaz.
Diaz was arrested shortly after the grisly discovery when a license plate reader detected his car in the area where the suitcase was dumped. He was taken to the 46th Precinct stationhouse in handcuffs as a crowd of angry onlookers shouted at him. Witnesses said Diaz remained silent and emotionless—until he was placed in the back of a police cruiser, where he appeared to smile.
“What is he smiling about?” one emotional resident said.
Diaz pleaded not guilty during his court appearance.
