Police Hunt For Father In Stabbing Deaths Of 2 Young Girls, Their Mother In Queens
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) - Police investigating the stabbing deaths of a mother and her two young children in Queens are working to track down the children's father, who's considered a suspect in the triple killing.
Police say 21-year-old Deisy Garcia, 2-year-old Daniela Mejia and 1-year-old Yaslin Mejia were found dead in an apartment in Jamaica around 7 p.m. Sunday.
They were stabbed multiple times in the chest and stomach and found in the bedroom of the apartment located above a pharmacy on Sutphin Boulevard. Other members of the household discovered the gruesome scene, police said.
Police are looking for the children's father, Miguel Mejia-Ramos, 28. He is known to drive a white 2001 Chevrolet commercial van with the license plate No. 22128MD and a white 1995 Dodge Suburban with the license plate No. GHS2798.
Relatives say Mejia-Ramos lived in the apartment with Garcia and the girls and that he argued with his wife about drinking and about the children crying too much.
However, Garcia's uncle, Romeo Chook, told 1010 WINS' Al Jones he didn't believe Mejia-Ramos had ever hit his niece.
"He don't hit nothing," Chook said. "This is why I think the guy's normal. So I don't know what happened.
"This is the nice, nice lady. This is a special lady for me," he added.
As CBS 2's Janelle Burrell reported, friends and other relatives were also struggling to make sense of the loss.
"I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Especially the kids," family friend Alberto Garcia told Burrell. "Everything she do, she do for her daughters. She was the best. She was the best mom."
Alberto Garcia, who is not related to the victim, said he grew up in the same Guatemalan town as the young mom.
Jerry, a neighbor, told WCBS 880's Monica Miller he remember seeing Garcia and her daughters walking hand in hand to the grocery store.
"Who in their right mind would kill a mother and two kids?" he said. "That's terrible."
Several knives were recovered at the scene, Burrell reported.
"I can't understand what happened," the victim's uncle Miguel Ramos said.
Police said they were called to the apartment twice last year for calls of domestic harassment. In both cases, police said there were no signs of physical abuse and no arrests were made.
"It's just a sad, sad case," Queens District Attorney Richard Brown told 1010 WINS' Glenn Schuck. "I've been 23 years as district attorney, had a lot of crime scenes, hundreds of them as a matter of fact and I don't know that any of them disturb me as much as when I see young children as the victims of a crime."
Garcia was religious and often attended the Church of God in Jamaica. Some members of her church family said Garcia showed up hysterically crying following an argument with her boyfriend, Burrell reported.
"Him and she had problems," church member Mike Aguilar said.
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