A 19-year-old man was arrested and charged with killing his father, his dad’s girlfriend and his five-year-old brother in a grisly triple stabbing in the Bronx, Fox News Digital confirmed.
The NYPD confirmed to Fox News Digital Thursday that 19-year-old college student Jayden Rivera was arrested and charged Wednesday evening for the deaths. He’s facing charges of murder-multiple victims, murder-intention, manslaughter and criminal possession of a weapon.
Police responded to an apartment in the Bronx’s Mott Haven on Sunday morning, where they found Jonathan Rivera, 38, Rivera’s girlfriend Hanoi Peralta, 33, and the couple’s five-year-old son Kayden Rivera suffering from stab wounds. Police said each member of the family was unconscious and unresponsive before EMS pronounced them deceased on the scene.
Shortly following the tragic discovery, speculation mounted that Rivera’s teenaged son was involved in the murders. The New York Post reported earlier this week that the son, who reportedly attends college upstate, had checked into Westchester County Medical Center shortly following the murders.
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NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny revealed at a press briefing this week that Jayden Rivera admitted to medical staff at the hospital that he “did something bad and that he had killed somebody.”
Kenny said investigators have learned that the son reportedly told his mom that he “was hearing voices” ahead of the stabbings, which escalated to him believing his dad and his dad’s girlfriend “were going to hurt him.”
“Later on, when he returned home, he stated to his mother again that he was hearing voices and that he thought that Mr. Rivera and Ms. Peralta were going to hurt him,” Kenny said, according to the New York Post.
Police said that Saturday evening into Sunday, neighbors in the Mott Haven apartment building heard a man shouting the Our Father in Spanish in the hallways of the apartment, and heard a man and a woman screaming at about 2 a.m. Sunday.
Police said in their initial statement that Jonathan Rivera was found in the hallway of the apartment building with stab wounds to the torso. Peralta was found in the couple’s apartment bedroom, and young Kayden Rivera was found on an air mattress with a single stab wound to his chest and eight in his torso, the Post reported. Kenny said the five-year-old was essentially “disemboweled” during the tragic violence.
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Police found a small kitchen knife and dented pot on the scene, Kenny said.
“It appears that after they were stabbed, the victims were beaten with [a] pot to the point that it was dented,” he said.
The suspect was taken to the hospital after he showed up to his mom’s apartment following the murders, which is also located in the Bronx, and she called 911.
The shock stabbings have left the family’s loved ones and friends grappling with unanswered questions. Jonathan Rivera’s dad, Miguel Rivera, told the New York Post that his son never played favorites with his four children and that there were no signs that the 19-year-old would commit such violence against his own family.
“I don’t see never like a jealous thing in Jayden,” he told the outlet on Tuesday. “I never seen Jonathan take one side to the other one. No, no, no. Never. Nobody takes a side.
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“Last year we were here for Thanksgiving and Jayden was here and he was playing.”
The grandfather said his “heart is broken for my baby, my youngest grandson.”
A friend of the family, Eusebio Baez, told the outlet that the couple had just gone on a “paint and sip” date just hours before their killings. Jayden Rivera even babysat his five-year-old half-brother while the couple went out for their last date, the Post reported.
“The night before, I spoke to him. He was at a paint and sip with his girlfriend … They posted on social media having a good time,” Baez, who knew Jonathan Rivera for 20 years before his killing, told the Post.
“He was showing everyone, ‘Look how much better her painting is than mine.’ They were both happy.”
Baez said his longtime friend had a “golden heart” who “sacrificed everything for his kids.”
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