Bronx District Attorney (DA) Darcel D. Clark announced that a Bronx man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, plus five years post-release supervision, for stabbing his wife to death inside a Bronx homeless shelter in 2019.

 

In reference to the case, Clark said, “The defendant stabbed his wife in front of their children. This vicious attack not only took the life of a 19-year-old woman, but also ripped the two children from their mother, and caused trauma to staff working to provide services to the defendant at the shelter where the stabbing occurred.”

 

The district attorney said the defendant, Ernesto Valerio, 27, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision by Bronx Supreme Court Justice Marsha Michael. Valerio pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Oct. 25.

 

According to the investigation, on Oct. 2, 2019, Valerio stabbed his wife, Emilsy Calix, 19, in the face, neck and chest with a kitchen knife inside their apartment on East 171^st Street (west of Claremont Park) in The Bronx. The couple’s two-year-old daughter and five-month-old daughter were present, according to the district attorney’s office.

 

DA officials said security guards in the shelter heard screams and went to the apartment. They said Valerio told them his wife went to the store and one of the children had fallen. As the guards went to the lobby to check the sign-out book, Valerio left the scene, leaving his two children at the shelter. The guards returned to the couple’s apartment and found the body of the victim in the bathtub. Valerio fled the location and was arrested later that night in The Bronx.

 

The case was prosecuted by assistant district attorney, Allison Kline, of the Domestic Violence Bureau, under the supervision of Agata DiGiovanni, chief of the Domestic Violence Bureau, and under the overall supervision of Adrienne Giunta, deputy chief of the Special Victims Division, and Joseph Muroff, chief of the Special Victims Division.

 

Clark thanked Ana Pimentel, advocate in the Crime Victims Assistance Bureau, for her work on the case, as well as NYPD Detectives Christopher Napoli of the 44^th Precinct and NYPD Detective Andre Smith of Bronx Homicide for their assistance with the case.