{"id":8107,"date":"2025-10-19T02:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T02:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/8107\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T02:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T02:14:11","slug":"emmanuel-pierre-convicted-of-killing-sandra-bonaventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/8107\/","title":{"rendered":"Emmanuel Pierre Convicted of Killing Sandra Bonaventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandra Bonaventure<\/a> couldn\u2019t wait to be a mom\u2014but she\u2019d never get the chance. <\/p>\n

How to Watch<\/p>\n

The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher\u00a0airs Saturdays at 9\/8c. on Oxygen. Watch full episodes on the Oxygen App<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Just seven months into her pregnancy, the 20-year-old\u2019s body was found stuffed into a black plastic trash bag tossed in a New York City tunnel in a heartbreaking case that continues to haunt investigators decades later. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn June 25, 2002, I was newly assigned to the Midtown North Detective Squad,\u201d NYPD homicide detective Brian MacLeod recounted of the homicide during the Oct. 18 episode of Oxygen\u2019s The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher<\/a>. \u201cThe first case you never forget, but a case like this, nobody forgets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who Was Sandra Bonaventure?<\/p>\n

In the summer of 2002, Bonaventure was paving her own path. The Mount Vernon, New York resident was the first in her family to go to college and was studying to be a special education teacher.<\/p>\n

\u201cSandra always did well in school, A\u2019s and B\u2019s and honor roll,\u201d her sister Marline Nelson remembered. \u201cShe was a jokester, loved to dance, she loved music. She was my best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonaventure was also embarking on a new chapter in life after discovering that she was pregnant with a baby boy, who she planned to name Isaiah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we found out Sandra was pregnant, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen her happier,\u201d her cousin Alexandra Hyppolite shared in the episode. \u201cShe glowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Happened to Sandra Bonaventure?<\/p>\n

But all that promise ended abruptly in June of 2022 when Bonaventure\u2019s body was found stuffed into a trash bag and dumped in a tunnel on West 56th Street in Hell\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n

Butcher, an experienced medicolegal death investigator with the New York Medical Examiner\u2019s Office, could find no evidence of drag marks or blood at the scene, ultimately concluding that \u201cshe had been killed elsewhere and dumped in this tunnel.\u201d<\/p>\n

An autopsy the next day determined that Bonaventure had been strangled to death sometime between June 22 and June 23. There was no evidence of a struggle or defensive wounds on the body.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably likely the this was someone she knew and didn\u2019t fight back initially,\u201d Butcher concluded. \u201cPerhaps she was surprised.\u201d <\/p>\n

Detectives Speak to Bonaventure\u2019s Boyfriend<\/p>\n

Detectives were tasked with breaking the news of her death to Bonaventure\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe day I found out about Sandra I was at work. My aunt had called me and all I heard was my aunt screaming,\u201d Nelson remembered through tears. \u201cWhen I heard my aunt scream, I dropped on the floor.\u201d <\/p>\n

RELATED: Barbara Butcher Reveals Why True Crime Lovers Can’t Miss The Death Investigator with Barbara Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Bonaventure\u2019s family told authorities that the father of her baby was 26-year-old Emmanuel Pierre, a graduate student from Brooklyn. <\/p>\n

Detectives went to speak to Pierre at his home. He told authorities he was supposed to pick Bonaventure up from the train station in Brooklyn in the early morning hours of June 20, but he fell asleep. When he woke up, he said he went to the station, but she was already gone. According to his account, he assumed that she was upset with him and went home. <\/p>\n

He told police that later that day he went to a concert and then headed out of town to Cleveland, Ohio from June 21 to June 26, an alibi that travel records confirmed. During his interview with police, Pierre also insisted that he couldn\u2019t be sure that he was really the baby\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

With Bonaventure\u2019s estimated time of death falling within the window of his trip, detectives moved on and looked into others in her life at the time, but the case soon stalled out.<\/p>\n

Credit Card Provides New Clues<\/p>\n

Nine months after the murder, detectives got an unexpected break in the case when they learned that Bonaventure\u2019s credit card had been used three times in the days after her death at gas stations in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

They were ultimately able to trace the card back to an employee at an assisted living facility, who told them he had gotten the card from his coworker, Joshua Cayenne. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Why Manson Cult Follower Patricia Krenwinkel Was Denied Parole Again After 50 Years Behind Bars<\/a><\/p>\n

Investigators learned that Cayenne also happened to be best friends and fraternity brothers with Pierre. <\/p>\n

Who Killed Sandra Bonaventure?<\/p>\n

After five hours in an interview room, Cayenne cracked and finally revealed how Bonaventure met her tragic fate.<\/p>\n

He told police that he was at his home in Brooklyn on the night of June 20, when Pierre knocked on his window and told him to come outside and meet him at his car.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmmanuel opens the passenger side, rear door, and Joshua looks in and he sees Sandra dead on the backseat,\u201d NYPD Homicide Detective Steve Terrizzi recounted. \u201cHe says he threw up right there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pierre told him he had to help dispose of the body and together they placed Bonaventure into the plastic bag and\u2014after driving around for hours\u2014dumped her inside the Manhattan tunnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmmanuel explained that she was pregnant, that he had been pressuring her to have an abortion,\u201d Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Thomas Schiels revealed in the episode of the motive. \u201cShe was refusing to do so and Miss Bonaventure was even threatening to tell Emmanuel\u2019s family that he had gotten her pregnant. He could not have this.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED: Cold Justice Preview: Killer Stabbed Indiana Mom 25 Times Before Getting Better Knife<\/a><\/p>\n

Given the new evidence uncovered during the investigation, the medical examiner changed Bonaventure\u2019s time of death to a window beginning on June 20. <\/p>\n

Pierre was arrested and convicted in 2005 of second-degree murder. According to DNA evidence presented during trial, he was the baby\u2019s father.<\/p>\n

Pierre died in prison in 2024 while serving out a sentence of 25 years to life behind bars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandra Bonaventure couldn\u2019t wait to be a mom\u2014but she\u2019d never get the chance. How to Watch The Death…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7162,238,9,56,63,65,64,7163],"class_list":["post-8107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-episodic","tag-murders","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-the-death-investigator-with-barbara-butcher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107","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=8107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}