BRONX MAN SENTENCED TO 27 YEARS TO LIFE IN PRISON IN 2018 MURDER OF LISA MARIE VELASQUEZ

 

Victim’s Body Was Dismembered and Remains Dumped in Parks Defendant Found Guilty by Jury

 Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark announced that a Bronx man has been sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for the murder and dismemberment of Lisa Marie Velasquez in 2018.

 District Attorney Clark said, “It was a horrifying series of acts against a woman who had come to the aid of her friend, who lived with the defendant. He mercilessly struck the victim with a hammer, then strangled her with a cord. The victim’s remains were placed in trash bags and the defendant and the friend Ms. Velasquez was trying to help dumped the bags in two Bronx parks. I send my condolences to the victim’s family and loved ones who have been waiting for justice, and hope today’s sentence gives them some measure of peace during this nightmare they are living.”

 District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Daquan Wheeler, 34, last of 1006 Longfellow Avenue, was sentenced today by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy to 25 years to life in prison on second-degree Murder, two to four years for Tampering with Physical Evidence, to run consecutive to the Murder sentence; and two to four years for Concealment of a Human Corpse, to run concurrently. A jury found the defendant guilty of the charges on April 14, 2022.

 According to the investigation, in the early morning of August 22, 2018, Lisa Marie Velasquez, 25, had gone to the apartment that the defendant shared with the mother of his child, co-defendant Ciara Martinez, at 1006 Longfellow Avenue, to help Martinez. The defendant hit Ms. Velasquez once in the head with a hammer. The victim fell to the floor and Martinez tried to convince the Defendant to get her medical attention. The defendant refused and got on top of Ms. Velasquez, straddled her, and struck her with the hammer at least 14 times. Wheeler then wrapped an electrical cord around her neck and strangled her to make sure she was dead. The defendant then dragged the victim’s body to the bathroom and placed her body in the bathtub.

 According to the investigation, Wheeler and Martinez cleaned the bathroom and bedroom, and got rid of their clothes, the victim’s clothes and the towels used to clean up blood, in an effort to conceal the murder. Wheeler and Martinez then went to a hardware store and bought trash bags and a machete. Wheeler dismembered the victim’s body using the machete, placed her remains in trash bags, and Wheeler and Martinez left them in Crotona Park and in the water off Barretto Point Park. Wheeler and Martinez then went back to the apartment and cleaned and painted the residence. 

 On August 24, 2018, a city Parks Department worker found the bags containing Ms. Velasquez’s remains in Crotona Park and on August 28, 2018, people visiting Barretto Point Park discovered the bags containing the rest of her remains.

 Martinez testified under a cooperation agreement and will be sentenced to time served on a misdemeanor charge of Conspiracy in the 5th Degree on May 10, 2022.

 District Attorney Clark also thanked NYPD Detective Sasha Brugal and NYPD Detective Dominic Robinson of the Bronx Homicide Squad and the NYPD Crime Scene Unit for their work on the case.