Strangler dead
Heart woe kills man in rosary bead killing
WANT FRIES with that coke?
The night shift manager at a Bronx McDonald’s has been busted for serving up cocaine with the fast food, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Frank Guerrero, 26, worked at the 24-hour McDonald’s on Bruckner Blvd. by Morrison Ave. in Soundview for eight years, and during that time, he often unlocked the doors to sell drugs in the middle of the night, prosecutors said.
Cops and federal authorities got a tip about the scheme and ordered up eight supersized drug buys “in increasingly larger quantities,” before arresting him Wednesday morning.
Guerrero stashed the cocaine on a soap dispenser in the restaurant’s bathroom before his shift started, and sold cocaine and crack with the burgers he rang up, authorities said.
Twice, he sold the drugs to an undercover officer at the counter, shoving the contraband in a cookie bag, which he stuffed alongside two cheeseburgers, a soda and fries, prosecutors said.
He made the deal under the noses of the other employees at the burger joint, prosecutors said.
“Guerrero’s conduct was so blatant, it would be comical if he weren’t committing a serious narcotics crime,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan. “Ordering coke took on an entirely different meaning on the night shift at this McDonald’s.”
Guerrero’s girlfriend, Leidy Cabral Castillo, 24, was also arrested. A BRONX MAN suspected of strangling his estranged girlfriend and shoving rosary beads down her throat, died before he could be charged with murder, police said Wednesday.
The death of Pierre Jones, 34, was announced as the city’s medical examiner determined that Helen Hernandez, a divorced mother of three, was the victim of a homicide.
Jones (photo left) was in St. Barnabas Hospital when he died of a heart attack on Sept. 5, police sources said.
Cops arrested Jones on Aug. 29 after he was seen running naked down a Bronx street screaming about the devil.
He appeared to be on drugs as he quarreled with onlookers, police said. Responding officers used a Taser to subdue him and took him to St. Barnabas for an evaluation.
Roughly an hour later, Hernandez (photo right) was found unconscious in her apartment on Anderson Ave. near Shakespeare Ave. in Highbridge.
Medics first thought she had suffered a drug overdose, but as they tried to revive her, they pulled a set of rosary beads from her mouth, police sources said. Hernandez, 33, was rushed to Lincoln Medical Center, where she died.
Witnesses told police that Jones walked out of his ex-girlfriend’s home shortly before he was arrested, mumbling that she was “with God now,” police sources said.
Jones and Hernandez had dated for several months, but broke up shortly before her death, relatives said.
Investigators believed Hernandez was strangled — something an autopsy verified earlier this week.
City Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson said Hernandez died of asphyxia from strangulation. She declared Hernandez’s death a homicide.
The rosary beads Jones allegedly stuffed in her mouth played a lethal role, because they obstructed her airway, Sampson said.
At the time of his death, Jones had not been charged with killing Hernandez.
An NYPD spokesman said the investigation into Hernandez’s murder remains open as they rule out other suspects.
Jones had an extensive criminal history that included robbery and assault. Cops also arrested him for domestic assault and violating an order of protection.
Hernandez was a doting single mother, neighbors said. Her oldest child is 17 and her youngest is 7. A PARAPALEGIC man who was outside his Chelsea building when a bomb exploded nearby said the blast was like “doomsday.”
Cort Cheek, 58, testified in Manhattan Federal Court Wednesday about the terror he felt on Sept. 17, 2016, when Ahmad Rahimi allegedly set off a pressure cooker bomb on W. 23rd St.
Rahimi, 29, is also accused of leaving another pressure cooker bomb on W. 27th St., but cops found the device and it didn’t detonate.
Cheek, who uses a wheelchair to get around, left his W. 23rd St. building to get some air just before 8:30 p.m., he said.
The building, between Sixth and Seventh Aves., is a home for blind and disabled people.
About five minutes later — when Cheek was still in front of the entrance to his building — he heard a deafening “boom.”
“I heard sirens going off, people screaming,” Cheek recalled.
“I thought it was doomsday,” Cheek testified. “Boom. Boom. It was incredible.”
Debris flew wildly toward Cheek before he got back inside, a dramatic 27-second video of the scene showed.