Baby mama slain
Boyfriend busted in Qns. tragedy
A hotheaded man fatally shot the mother of his child at pointblank range after an argument at their Queens home on Sunday, police sources said.
Luz Cuza, 34 — who gave birth to a son about four months ago — was shot through the eye by her boyfriend, Robert Rodriguez, as she sat on her stoop near 147th Street and 133rd Avenue in South Ozone Park just after 2 a.m., according to the sources.
The 31-year-old suspect fled with the murder weapon hidden in a shoebox — but was caught by cops while taking a cab to his mom’s place, the sources said.
Ray Garcia, a brother of the victim, said he visited the couple at around 1 a.m. and saw his sister outside and her boyfriend loading a gun in the doorway.
The couple, who had been to- gether for about 18 months, had just had an argument, according to the relative. But Garcia said he wasn’t immediately alarmed by the sight of the weapon as Rodriguez was known to carry a gun and his sister assured him nothing was seriously wrong.
“I didn’t think nothing of it,” the brother said. “She didn’t say nothing. She was just sitting there. She had confidence that he wouldn’t hurt her — she’s his baby’s mother.
“I looked at her and said, ‘What are you doing?’ She said, ‘I don’t think he’s gonna do nothing.’ So I went inside the house,” Garcia added. “Then I hear one shot.”
When he returned, Garcia found his sister on the ground, bleeding from the head.
“I started crying. I told her, ‘I’m gonna save you,’ ” he said. “She took a deep breath, but couldn’t talk. I started knocking on everybody’s door — boom boom boom — to get someone to call an ambulance.”
Cruz was pronounced dead at Jamaica Hospital.
Her mother, Eugenia Arizemendi, 61, vowed to care for her grandson.
“I need to get this baby. That’s the only thing I’ve got now. I don’t got my daughter; I want the baby,” Arizemendi said.
“I wasn’t a strong woman in the hospital. I stood there until they zipped her up,” she said. “The doctor explained to me that since she got to the hospital she was brain-dead because the bullet went in her eye and out through her brain.”
Rodriguez has 16 prior arrests. Thirteen were sealed and three were for pot and narcotics.
“I want to know if he’s got anything to say to the family,” said David Cuza, 28, another brother of the victim. “We just want to know why he did it. Why would you kill the mother of the child?”
Garcia speculated Rodriguez might have been drinking.
“Every time he gets drunk, he starts cursing, acting up,” he said. “I told her he was dangerous. He was obsessed.”