FLORIDA MAN SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS TO LIFE IN PRISON FOR THE MURDER OF BRONX WOMAN IN 2000

 

Defendant Pleaded Guilty to Second-Degree Murder; He Was Extradited From Florida After DNA Matched to Him in 2017

 Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a Florida man has been sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the strangulation murder of a Bronx woman in a Van Nest apartment in 2000. The cold case was solved in 2017 when DNA and a fingerprint from the crime scene were matched to him.

 District Attorney Clark said, “The defendant killed a 19-year-old woman in December 2000 and her lifeless body was discovered by her mother. The defendant moved on and started a new life in Florida, but justice always catches up. The defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree Murder and was sentenced today to 20 years to life in prison. I thank the NYPD Detectives who never gave up on finding the person who killed Dora Del Valle, whose family has waited too long for closure, but I hope today they can take some comfort in this sentence.”

 District Attorney Clark said the defendant, Christopher Gonzalez, 41, of Naples, Florida, was sentenced today by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Martin Marcus to 20 years to life in prison. The defendant pleaded guilty to second-degree Murder on December 21, 2022.

 According to the investigation, on December 2, 2000, inside an apartment building on 1186 East 180th Street, the victim, Dora Del Valle, 19, was house-sitting for her uncle who was hospitalized at the time. The defendant, who lived blocks away from the victim, strangled her with a telephone cord, causing her death. The victim, who had been raped, was found dead by her family later that day.

 A fingerprint and significant DNA evidence collected at the scene was matched to the defendant in 2017. He was extradited from Florida on December 8, 2017. The DNA hit also matched the defendant to a 2005 cold case murder in Westchester County.

 District Attorney Clark thanked NYPD Detectives Malcolm Reiman (retired) and Matt McCrosson (retired) of Bronx Homicide, Detective Arthur Connelly (retired) of NYPD Latent Print Section, Investigator Eugene Donnelly from the New York State Police Major Crimes Unit, and Detective Kevin O’Neill and the Collier County Sheriff’s Office.