'He Looked Like A Good Person': Victor Pena's Ex-Girlfriend Says He Was Abusive
CHARLESTOWN (CBS) – The man accused of kidnapping 23-year-old Olivia Ambrose and holding her against her will had a history of locking people inside, his ex-girlfriend said.
Maybely Centeno lives around the corner from Victor Pena in Charlestown, and said she dated him for about six months in 2012. She hasn't spoken with him since 2013.
"He looked like a good person [at first]," she told WBZ. "You don't suspect [a] bad person, nothing."
But when the doors were closed and they were in private, she said she often feared for her safety. "One time he punched me," she said. Centeno said Pena punched her, pushed her, and on multiple occasions, locked her inside his apartment.
Once you were inside his apartment, "you don't go outside," she said. "He won't open the door with the key. You don't go outside."
Court records show Pena had personally installed a separate lock on his door at his Walford Way apartment in Charlestown, against housing authority rules. Centeno said she experienced that lock before, and that there were times in their relationship when he wouldn't let her leave. "I pushed back and said 'oh my god what's wrong with you?'" she told WBZ, adding that he was "very mad and aggressive."
The final straw for Centeno she said happened during an encounter that made her fear for her life. She told WBZ that Pena put his hand on her back and asked her, "How do you want to die? Fast or slow?" At that point, she waited for him to leave the room, and escaped the house. "And I never [came] back," she said. She even changed her number to avoid his constant contact.
Centeno said when she heard that Olivia Ambrose was missing and that her cell phone had pinged near Walford Way, she knew it was Victor. "Oh my god," she said. "It's Victor."
Centeno said Pena would become obsessed with women and make them uncomfortable, a sentiment echoed by neighbors at the Bunker Hill housing development.