Woman Slashed to Death & Boyfriend Jumps From Apartment to Commit Suicide

A 61-year old woman was brutally slashed to death by her 52-year old boyfriend, who jumped from their Brooklyn apartment to commit suicide after murdering her.

The horrific murder came after years of supposed abuse that included taunts over her weight, according to police and friends of the victim.

Officers arrived after receiving a 911 call at fourth-floor apartment on Sixth Avenue near 53rd Street in Sunset Park just after 2 a.m. and found Delma Mateo lying in the hallway with cuts to her head, neck and torso with a bloody knife, hammer and screwdriver nearby.

Mateo’s longtime live-in boyfriend Felix Santiago was discovered on the ground outside of the building with a knife nearby.

Both Mateo and Santiago were pronounced dead at the scene of the crime.

Neighbors reported to police that Mateo had faced verbal abuse from the man, whose young son committed suicide and jumped from a different window in the same apartment several years ago.

“Every day he abused her, he would say she’s no good, she’s a heavy person, so she had the surgery to lose weight,” said Joyce Velazquez, who described herself as the Mateo’s best friend. “He used to tell her she looked like she was 90 years old. She just got her breasts done to look younger.”

“She was from Puerto Rico and she lost 130 pounds after being verbally put down constantly by him. She had the surgery for her weight three years ago,” Velazquez added. “Santiago suffered from schizophrenia and was known to drink and pop painkillers. He used to tell her all the time that he’s going to kill her and then kill himself. She was a wonderful woman. She used to treat him good, she was very scared of him. He used to treat her real bad. He hit her. One time he tried to choke her.”

Several years ago, Santiago’s teenage son threw himself from a window in the same apartment to commit suicide.

Before Santiago decided to murder Mateo he gave his car to his nephew and his cellphone to his other son with a bunch of cash he had stashed away in the apartment.

“She was telling me that something is wrong,” Velazquez said. “I told her ‘You need to leave tonight. He sounds like he’s going to do something bad. He used to always say that he’s going to kill her. She said ‘I’m scared.’ I asked her ‘do you want me to call the police?’ She said ‘no, because it’s going to be worse.”

“He’s planning something. I told her to come to my house,” the tearful friend added. “He wants to kill you. She said, ‘you think?’ I said ‘yes. He’s giving all his money away, he gave his car away and was talking all these things. He’s going to kill you tonight. Please I beg you come to my house. I can ask the police to take you some place. I don’t want you to die.”

Yamais Peña, a neighbor who lives on the second floor of the same building, said, “I called the police before and reported Santiago for abuse several times. I even called on Thursday because I heard Mateo shouting for help.”

“Last night she was screaming like crazy, like she need help, so I called the police. Right away I did, and they come in five minutes. I opened the door for them, and I said, hurry up because she’s screaming like crazy, he’s gonna kill her,” Peña continued to say about the incident. “The last word that she said, ‘call the police, help me somebody.’ She’s screaming, it’s in my head right now. ‘Help me, somebody call the police.’ I’m so mad that I can’t run over there.”

Cops responding to the 911 call knocked on the door, but were told there were no issues by a man inside who refused to open the door.

Cops then busted through the door after neighbors said someone was screaming for help in there. Police found a horrifying scene filled with blood everywhere after entering the apartment.

While police preliminarily believe the incident was a murder-suicide, the investigation is ongoing. Authorities have not officially identified the pair, pending family notification.