{"id":329864,"date":"2026-08-26T03:44:50","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329864\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T03:44:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:44:50","slug":"man-accused-of-beating-mother-to-death-in-bronx-apartment-arrested-a-few-blocks-from-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/329864\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of beating mother to death in Bronx apartment arrested a few blocks from home"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 33-year-old man accused of beating his mother to death<\/a> in their family\u2019s Bronx apartment was arrested Tuesday after he was spotted about seven blocks from his home, officials said.<\/p>\n

Bob Johnny Guzman Soto was found near the corner of Edward L. Grant Highway and W. 170th St. in Highbridge after someone called 911 after recognizing him from a picture the NYPD shared with city news outlets, police said.<\/p>\n

Guzman Soto was about a half mile from his home in the West Bronx when he was taken into custody, cops said.<\/p>\n

Detectives charged him with murder, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon for the vicious attack that killed his mother<\/a>, 57-year-old Josefa Soto de Guzman, on Friday.<\/p>\n

The arrest comes just over 24 hours after the NYPD released surveillance footage on Monday showing Guzman Soto slowly walking through the lobby of his mother\u2019s apartment building wheeling a small suitcase.<\/p>\n

Soto de Guzman\u2019s husband, Johny Guzman, told the Daily News he found his wife dead, covered with blood and sitting on the living room sofa inside their Grand Concourse home near E. 168th St. around 3:25 p.m. Police say she suffered fatal injuries to her head and torso.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was working nearby and needed a tool, so I went to the house to get it,\u201d Guzman said in Spanish. \u201cI grabbed the tool and called out to her, but she didn\u2019t answer, so I went into the living room and found her dead on the sofa.\u201d<\/p>\n

The grieving husband said Soto de Guzman wanted to take their son to Santo Domingo on Saturday and had already booked a flight, but the son was in the midst of a mental health crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very nervous while preparing for the trip,\u201d Guzman said. \u201cI told her to call an ambulance, but she refused because she didn\u2019t want him stuck in the hospital for a long time. She had already bought the flight and didn\u2019t want to leave him behind. She was obsessed with taking him because he hadn\u2019t visited his home country since arriving here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guzman Soto had a habit of grabbing a suitcase and going for a walk whenever he was suffering a mental health crisis, Guzman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe \u2014 though I didn\u2019t see it myself, as I wasn\u2019t there \u2014 that she tried to stop him. I\u2019ve tried to stop him myself on such occasions but he doesn\u2019t listen so I just let him go,\u201d he said. \u201cI imagine he didn\u2019t listen to her either. She kept trying and he hit her, that is what I think happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neighbors described the couple\u2019s son as mentally unstable.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe tweaks sometimes,\u201d said neighbor Robin Santos, 24. \u201cHis thoughts just take him somewhere else on some crazy sh-t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really thought that he was at this level of craziness,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Guzman Soto was quiet, reserved and religious and regularly attended local church groups and Bible studies, a 32-year-old neighbor who declined to give his name said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe son was unwell mentally,\u201d that neighbor said. \u201cHe has a history of just kind of grabbing stuff and disappearing for a few days to a week even and then goes to check himself off in the in the hospital \u2026 They\u2019ll medicate him and later on he just gets released.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guzman Soto\u2019s arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending Tuesday night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 33-year-old man accused of beating his mother to death in their family\u2019s Bronx apartment was arrested Tuesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,259,9,24,63,103,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-329864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-murder","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nypd","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329864","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=329864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}