After five years of domestic turmoil marked by angry separations and short-lived reconciliations, a Bronx ex-con fatally shot his pregnant girlfriend and her sister in front of his teen stepdaughters, the terrified girls told neighbors.
Before he fled, Edelmiro “Junior” Cesare, 30, threatened to kill one of the girls as she knelt sobbing over her mother’s body, the teens told neighbors after the Tuesday night shooting.
Police yesterday were combing the city for Cesare, whom they described as a “person of interest” in the case. They said he had a police record, but offered no details.
Neighbors said they saw Cesare flee the building at 187 Throgs Neck Blvd. about 10:30 p.m., leaving his daughter, Maya, 4, and stepdaughters, Christine, 13, and Ashley, 15, with the bodies of their mother, Loreen Merchan, and aunt, Yasmin Merchan.
The couple’s 2-year-old daughter was with her grandmother in Waterbury, Conn., sources said.
Cesare had been living in the building with Loreen Merchan, 33, for the past two weeks, neighbors said.
But Sunday, when friend and neighbor Deyanira Vazquez last saw 4-months-pregnant Loreen, and Yasmin, 26, she learned “they had been fighting again.”
On Tuesday, neighbors heard eight gunshots, followed by screams, from the couple’s apartment.
Inside the apartment, Vazquez found the dead sisters sprawled on the floor with the teens bent over them. Christine said Cesare threatened to shoot her, too, Vasquez said.
Additional reporting by Philip Messing