Two squatters have now each been sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison for murdering a mother when she returned home to her Kips Bay apartment in 2024.<\/p>\n
Kensly Alston, 20, and Halley Tejada, 21, each pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the killing of Nadia Vitels, a mother who had just begun moving into a new apartment on East 31st Street, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said in an announcement of the sentencings Friday.<\/p>\n
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called Vitels “a mother who was starting a new chapter in life.”<\/p>\n
“While I hope today’s sentencing can provide some closure, it will not bring Ms. Vitels back,” Bragg said.<\/p>\n
Tejada pleaded guilty in December and was sentenced in April. Alston pleaded guilty in May and was sentenced Friday, closing the case.<\/p>\n
Alston and Tejada entered Vitels’ apartment with a pink suitcase around 1 p.m. on March 10, 2024, two days before she was killed, according to court documents. They came and went from the building over the next two days, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Vitels returned home with her dog around 11:30 a.m. on March 12, 2024, while the two were still inside, according to the district attorney’s office. Later that afternoon, they briefly left the apartment to buy a vape and a second suitcase at Target using Vitels’ credit card before returning, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
By 5:45 p.m. that day, the two left the building wearing blue gloves and carrying both suitcases, then drove off in Vitels’ car toward Pennsylvania, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
Vitels’ family grew concerned two days later when she stopped responding to messages, prosecutors said. The building’s superintendent let them inside, where they found her dog alone and her body inside a bag in the front coat closet. The medical examiner determined she died of blunt force trauma.<\/p>\n
During nine days in Pennsylvania, Alston and Tejada used Vitels’ credit cards to buy a PlayStation 5, AirPods, clothing, food and a diamond ring, prosecutors said. U.S. Marshals arrested them in York, Pennsylvania, on March 22, 2024.<\/p>\n
Alston\u2019s attorney did not return a phone message and contact information for Tejada\u2019s lawyer was not immediately available.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two squatters have now each been sentenced to 20 years to life in state prison for murdering a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-279880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}