A DAD CAN ONLY PRAY
Daughter in coma; her husband charged in car, knife attack
Pastor Chuck Brooks knows the odds are stacked against his comatose daughter’s recovery. And so, two months after she was run down by an SUV with her crazed and estranged spouse at the wheel, he prays for a miracle.
The man of God and father of domestic violence victim Sophia Giraldo believes in repentance too, and hopes the day will come when her jailed husband admits to his sins in the unforgivable Dec. 27 attack witnessed by the couple’s three horrified sons.
“Forgiveness is granted when the person asks for it,” Brooks told the Daily News. “He has to be contrite. He has to be repentant. We can forgive him in a general sense ... So we’re not going to be unkind or harsh to him. That’s not Christ-honoring.”
Brooks knows the future remains uncertain nearly two months after the violent and unprovoked attack where Stephen Giraldo loaded his boys into the SUV and waited for his 41-year-old wife to emerge from her Queens home.
“Everyone keep your seat belts on,” the suspect told his children before accelerating into their mother with the vehicle — the last of several alleged domestic violence incidents.
“She’s in a coma,” Brooks said. “She’s been in a coma since day one. She’s on a ventilator. The neurologist, all the professionals say the type of brain injury that she has, it’s basically non-recoverable ... So our hope is in the Lord.”
The pastor recalled his feelings of optimism the first time his daughter introduced her future husband. He forged a bond with Stephen, exchanging text messages and offering encouragement.
“He seemed to be a delightful young man,” said Brooks. “Their marriage went well for several years.”
By last December, their 13-year marriage was in shambles. Sophia, who went public with allegations of domestic violence, had filed for divorce four months earlier as their love turned toxic.
“He’s a very manipulative person,” said Brooks. “As the song says, he can smile in your face and then backstab you. In her case, literally.”
Sophia is one of eight children, the firstborn to the deeply religious preacher and his wife. She started a Bible club while in high school, graduated from Messiah University in Pennsylvania, and traveled as a missionary to China and Ecuador before landing in Queens to launch a new church.
She fell in love with her husband there, and Brooks recalled Giraldo asking him for Sophia’s hand in marriage.
“[He] was a few years younger than her, but he seemed to be very mature and friendly,” Brooks said. “And he was mentored by one of the pastors up in New York.”
But things started to go bad after Sophia found pornography on her husband’s computer, Brooks recounted. One month before her death, Sophia posted on Facebook about the ugly disintegration of their romance.
“I found myself in the middle of a marriage filled with betrayal and abuse,” she wrote. The mom, in another Facebook post, revealed she and their sons spent time in a domestic violence shelter in 2019.
“For her safety, for her sanity, she had to find a place to live,” said Brooks. “And then she was able to get an apartment, and during that time ... she really hit a low spot. A dark place in her life. But as she separated from him, she got her own place.”
The time away from Stephen Giraldo “was really providing healing for her,” said Brooks, recalling the husband was unapologetic as the fissures in their marriage widened over the years.
“He didn’t seem to be contrite or sorrowful about his behavior,” said Brooks. “He just began to be just more obstinate and he changed ... But what he did on Dec. 27, none of us would have ever expected
that to happen.”
Giraldo remains behind bars, charged with attempted murder, assault, criminal possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child. The victim’s dad believes Giraldo was angered to watch as his wife moved forward without him.
“I think he wanted her to suffer,” Brooks explained. “But she wasn’t suffering. She was doing it. God was blessing her.”
Giraldo’s lawyer did not respond to a call for comment.
According to Queens prosecutors, the MTA bus driver was lying in wait at 5:20 a.m. for his wife to come outside and pick the boys up. As she approached, authorities said, Giraldo hit the gas and sent his wife sailing over a nearby fence as his SUV flipped onto its side.
Giraldo then climbed over his eldest son in the front seat to continue the attack, stabbing his wife in the chest, authorities said, before dialing 911 to confess to the crime. NYPD body cameras recorded a subsequent admission: “I hit my wife, arrest me.”
The witness boys are 11, 9 and 6 years old, and police arrived to find Sophia Giraldo covered in blood with broken bones, a punctured liver and severe neurological damage.
Brooks said he and his wife had dinner with the kids on Thursday.
“They’re having problems, but they would,” said the grandfather. “The oldest was in the front seat, so they witness their mom being run down by their dad. How would you respond with seeing that? So that’s where they are. But we’re loving on them.”
The waiting game continues for the Brooks family as they hope for the best and brace for the worst. Brooks said Sophia was moved from the hospital to a rehabilitation facility, where a feeding tube provides her nutrition.
“We’re praying that she will recover and God will restore her to her children, to her family to her ministry,” said her dad.