‘Monster under the bed’ faces prison for Cheltenham stabbing

NORRISTOWN » A man characterized as the “monster under the bed” was sent to prison for stabbing a male friend of a Cheltenham woman with whom he was obsessed after lying in wait at her home.

Gerardo Lopez Mejia, 29, of the 200 block of East Somerville Street, Philadelphia, was sentenced in Montgomery County Court to 25 to 50 years in a state correctional facility after he pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder and burglary in connection with the March 18, 2017, incident. The sentence was imposed by Judge Gail A. Weilheimer.

“As kids we hear stories of the monster under the bed and this man embodied that evil and brought that to life for the victims,” said Assistant District Attorney Roderick Fancher, who argued for the lengthy prison term. “This is a person who was able to get inside a home and lie in wait…He laid in wait under the bed…and when he saw another man at that apartment his jealousy turned this into attempted murder.”

According to detectives and previous testimony, the woman met Mejia March 4 at a club and they began a brief relationship. The woman broke off the relationship when Mejia allegedly told her he wanted to be her “owner” and showed signs of being possessive. However, Mejia continued to contact the woman and stalk her through text messaging, authorities alleged.

On the night of the incident, the woman feared Mejia may show up at her apartment in the 7600 block of Williams Way and she asked a male friend to accompany her there as a precaution.

Mejia was found hiding under the woman’s bed when she returned home about 6:30 a.m. After being discovered, Mejia attacked the woman’s male friend, stabbing him nine times, inflicting injuries to his back, torso, arm, and hand. The victim underwent surgery for his injuries, which included a punctured lung and punctured intestine, according to court papers.

“This is an incident of classic escalation of domestic violence behavior, of somebody who becomes obsessed and can’t let go and then escalates their obsessive behavior to violence,” Fancher argued. “He inflicted terror and evil upon these people out of his jealousy and inability to cope with not being able to own a woman the way he wanted to.”

Mejia fled from the residence after the attack but was taken into custody by police at the SEPTA bus loop at Cheltenham and Ogontz avenues about 7 a.m.

Fancher said the case easily could have been a murder case but for the “magic of modern medicine” and the male victim’s ability to fight off Mejia and protect the woman.

“He’s a hero. He saved her life,” Fancher said about the male victim.

Mejia, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, will face deportation proceedings after he completes his prison term.

The woman, according to testimony and court documents, was returning from a concert in New York when she missed her connection in Trenton early March 18 and called a longtime male friend to pick her up at the train station. Mejia texted the woman around 3 a.m. and told her he was at her apartment and the woman told him to go home and that she didn’t want to see him, according to the criminal complaint filed by Cheltenham Detective Steven Motta.

Mejia tried calling the woman about 30 times while she and her friend stopped to have breakfast and she told her friend she was afraid Mejia might be at her apartment and asked the friend to accompany her home.

When the woman’s friend searched the apartment, he observed Mejia hiding under the woman’s bed. Mejia then emerged, holding a knife in his hand, and telling the woman, “you failed me,” according to court papers.

The woman’s friend told her to run and call 911. The victim tackled Mejia as Mejia came at him with the knife and both men went to the floor and the victim was stabbed numerous times during the altercation.

“I saw the knife and just started trying to stop him from stabbing me but he stabbed me a few more times,” the victim told detectives, according to the arrest affidavit.

The victim eventually kicked Mejia off of him and Mejia fled from the apartment. “(The woman) was in fear for her life,” Motta alleged in the arrest affidavit, adding the woman followed an emergency dispatcher’s instructions to use a rag to apply pressure to her friend’s severe back wound until an ambulance arrived.

“I saw the knife and just started trying to stop him from stabbing me but he stabbed me a few more times.” — The victim told detectives, according to the arrest affidavit