{"id":31589,"date":"2025-11-07T05:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/31589\/"},"modified":"2025-11-07T05:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T05:21:08","slug":"ny-man-convicted-of-beating-social-worker-to-death-for-door-knock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/31589\/","title":{"rendered":"NY man convicted of beating social worker to death for door knock"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Westchester County man who beat a social worker to death after she knocked on the wrong door<\/a> was convicted Wednesday of murder, manslaughter and other crimes.<\/p>\n

Hasseem Jenkins, a 32-year-old Peekskill resident, was found guilty of killing 56-year-old Maria Coto<\/a> outside his apartment building.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs proved during a multi-week trial, Hasseem Jenkins beat her<\/a> until the nerves in her brain stem were severed beyond repair, hurling repeated epithets as she lay dying on the floor,\u201d Westchester County District Attorney Susan Cacace said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Coto was making a home visit to an apartment on May 14, 2024, in Peekskill when she accidentally knocked on Jenkins\u2019 door<\/a> instead of her client\u2019s, according to investigators. Jenkins walked out and immediately punched her in the face, chased her into a neighboring apartment and stomped her with heavy boots.<\/p>\n

Throughout the deadly beating, Jenkins screamed and cursed at Coto<\/a>. His words were recorded on a 911 call that Coto made after the initial punch.<\/p>\n

At trial, Jenkins\u2019 attorneys argued that he accidentally ingested PCP<\/a> earlier in the day and therefore should not be convicted of murder because he had no intent to kill.<\/p>\n

However, the jury agreed with the prosecutors, who focused on the horrific nature of Coto\u2019s injuries and Jenkins\u2019 aggression as recorded on the 911 call. Jenkins was convicted of second-degree murder,<\/a> first-degree manslaughter, robbery, burglary and weapons possession.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaria devoted her brief time on Earth to helping others,\u201d Cacace<\/a> said. \u201cShe was a petite woman with an uncommonly generous spirit. She will live on in all the lives she touched along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Westchester County man who beat a social worker to death after she knocked on the wrong door…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[266,85,607,9,24,12,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-31589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-national-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31589","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=31589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}