For five days, the flyers went up all over the eastern Rockaways. “We’ve been putting up flyers all over the neighborhood all day and all night,” Davonna Gray, the sister of Seraphina Pereira, told the Daily News. On the night of Saturday, Oct. 24, police found Pereira’s body buried in a shallow grave in Rockaway Community Park in Edgemere, about half a mile from her home.
On Tuesday, Oct. 27, the NYPD said it had charged Rogelio Lozano-Garita, 26, with murder, criminal possession of a weapon, concealment of a human corpse and tampering with physical evidence, Gothamist’s Brittany Kriegstein reported. He has not been convicted of anything and is presumed innocent. As detectives walked him out of the 101st Precinct stationhouse on Tuesday afternoon, he spoke to reporters. “I am innocent, I didn’t kill her,” he said, according to amNewYork.
What police have said
Pereira, 35, was reported missing from her home in the New York City Housing Authority‘s Ocean Bay Apartments, on Beach 54th Street, on the morning of Oct. 19, the NYPD told Gothamist. Her family and friends searched and put up flyers.
According to amNewYork, police found her at about 9:42 p.m. on Oct. 24 near Beach 58th Street and Almeda Avenue, inside Rockaway Community Park. Gothamist reported that the spot was near a cricket field. Her body showed signs of decomposition.
On Monday, Oct. 26, the city’s chief medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. The early accounts of her injuries differ. Gothamist reported that the medical examiner found she had been shot in the head, neck and torso. ABC7 New York and amNewYork, citing authorities, described a single gunshot wound to the head.
The arrest
On the night of Monday, Oct. 26, police and hostage negotiators went to the Ocean Bay complex looking for a man connected to the case, ABC7 reported. He was found and detained at a different location nearby. Law enforcement sources described him at the time as a person of interest.
The accounts of his relationship to Pereira also vary. Gothamist, citing police, called him her ex-boyfriend. ABC7 and amNewYork called him her boyfriend. Outlets agree that he is the father of two of her children. Gothamist described Pereira as a mother of three, and amNewYork as a mother of four.
The most notable allegation came from amNewYork. Citing law enforcement sources, it reported that Lozano-Garita was the one who had reported Pereira missing, almost a week before she was found, and that statements he made during the investigation led detectives to her body. Police have not said publicly what those statements were. The same sources said he has no prior criminal record and that the motive is not known.
Those details come from anonymous sources, not from a charging document, and they have not been tested in court. They will matter. A statement that led detectives to a body can be strong evidence for the prosecution, and the defense is entitled to challenge how it was obtained and what it means. The Queens District Attorney’s Office, led by Melinda Katz, will prosecute the case.
Edgemere
Rockaway Community Park, long known as Edgemere Park, runs along Almeda Avenue a few blocks from the Ocean Bay Apartments, with ball fields including the cricket ground near where Pereira was found. It became a crime scene that Saturday night.
Neighbors told ABC7 that the heavy police presence on Monday night appeared to confirm what they had feared since Pereira disappeared.
Resources
Gothamist noted that anyone who has experienced a crime, including domestic violence, can call the city’s 24-hour Hope Hotline at 1-800-621-HOPE (4673) or chat with an advocate at on.nyc.gov/hotlinechat.
What’s next
Lozano-Garita was led from the precinct on Tuesday on his way to face a judge, amNewYork reported. The outcome of that first appearance, including any bail decision, had not been widely reported as of Oct. 28. To take the murder charge to trial, prosecutors will need a grand jury indictment. The charges listed so far are accusations. The anonymous accounts of what Lozano-Garita told detectives, and the differing descriptions of Pereira’s wounds, are the kinds of details that will be tested, in public, if the case goes forward.
Pereira’s children have lost their mother, and two of them now have a father charged in her death. A court will decide whether that charge holds. Her family’s search is over.
Featured image: Rockaway Community Park, formerly Edgemere Park, along Almeda Avenue in Edgemere, Queens, 2018. Photo by Tdorante10 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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