A man arrested for shooting his girlfriend to death reported his victim missing two days after he buried her body in a shallow grave at a Queens waterfront park, then, in a bizarre claim, said a surfer found her belongings on a Rockaway beach, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Rogelio Lozano-Garita, 26, told police on Oct. 21 that a box containing his girlfriend Seraphina Pereira’s possessions was delivered to his apartment in Edgemere, according to Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz. Along with the package came a note purportedly written by a surfer, who Lozano-Garita claimed found the victim’s belongings on the beach, Katz said.
Pereira’s decomposing body was discovered three days later by an NYPD K9 unit searching the beach at Rockaway Community Park near Beach 58th St. and Almeda Ave. around 9:40 p.m.
“The defendant mercilessly killed his girlfriend — the mother of his children,” Katz said Wednesday. “He attempted to cover up the crime by wheeling her body in a pull wagon to a nearby park and burying the woman in a shallow grave.”
Courtesy of family
Rogelio Lozano Garita, left, and Seraphina Pereira with their children at their son’s birthday party earlier this month. (Courtesy of family)
Lozano-Garita was ordered held without bail after pleading not guilty on Wednesday to murder charges, as well as concealment of a human corpse, criminal possession of a weapon, and tampering with evidence for the fatal shooting of Pereira, 35.
The victim’s family said Pereira had been trying to leave Lozano-Garita, her longtime boyfriend with whom she shared two children, when she turned up dead.
“She was trying to get rid of him,” the victim’s sister Davonna Gray said of the suspect. “She was trying to leave.”
Pereira’s decomposing body was found in the park around 9:40 p.m. Saturday, cops said.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
Seraphina Pereira’s body was found in this shallow grave in Rockaway Community Park near Beach 58th St. and Almeda Ave. in the Rockaways about 9:40 p.m. Saturday, five days after she went missing. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The victim, who lived just a few blocks away from where her body was found, had gone missing five days earlier.
Surveillance video shows the couple entering the victim’s building together around 2 a.m. Oct. 19th, cops said. About three hours later, Lozano-Garita was seen hauling several large garbage bags out of the building on a wagon.
NYPD vehicles are pictured outside NYCHA’s Ocean Bay Apartments on Monday, Oct. 26, 2026, where police are searching for a suspect in Seraphina Pereira’s murder. (Kerry Burke / New York Daily News)
Around 5 a.m., footage shows the suspect pulling the wagon into a wooded area of Rockaway Community Park, only to leave without the cart about a half-hour later
Investigators believe the victim, who was found with gunshot wounds to her head, neck, and torso, was killed in her apartment.
Lozano-Garita was arrested near Pereira’s home in NYCHA’s Ocean Bay Apartments complex on Beach 54th St. Monday evening. He lives in Far Rockaway about a mile from the victim’s apartment.
Rogelio Lozano Garita is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 101st Precinct stationhouse in Queens on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. Lozano Garita is accused of killing Seraphina Pereira, who was found decomposing in Rockaway Community Park near Beach 58th St. and Almeda Ave. in the Rockaways. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Lozano-Garita shouted “I’m innocent! I’m innocent!” as police led him out of the 101st Precinct stationhouse the following day.
“He said he was innocent because he is innocent,” the suspect’s brother, 27-year-old Carlos Lozano, told the Daily News at Queens Criminal Court on Tuesday. “My brother is a nice person. I know my brother. He’s innocent.”
Rogelio Lozano Garita is pictured in police custody leaving the NYPD’s 101st Precinct stationhouse in Queens on Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026. Lozano Garita is accused of killing Seraphina Pereira, who was found decomposing in Rockaway Community Park near Beach 58th St. and Almeda Ave. in the Rockaways. (Barry Williams/ New York Daily News)
Carlos said he last saw Lozano-Garita and Pereira together at their son’s birthday party earlier this month, where they appeared to be a “happy, normal couple.”
“It’s heartbreaking,” Lozano-Garita’s brother said. “We can’t believe this happened. Whoever did this needs to turn themselves in.”
Pereira’s oldest son, 14, is disabled and lives in a facility in Yonkers, her sister said. Her other three children, a 13-year-old son, a 4-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, lived with their mother in the Rockaways, relatives said.
Seraphina Pereira’s body was found in a shallow grave in Rockaway Community Park near Beach 58th St. and Almeda Ave. in the Rockaways about 9:40 p.m. Saturday, five days after she went missing. (Facebook)
Lozano-Garita is the father of Pereira’s two youngest children. The couple had no history of domestic clashes involving the NYPD, police said.