Thread: N.Y.: Mother confronts killer who brutally murdered her daug

Mother confronts killer who brutally murdered her daughter with a metal pipe in random attack

BY Thomas Zambito
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Wednesday, April 27th 2011, 6:54 PM


A grieving mother who came to Queens from China to confront her daughter's murderer broke down repeatedly in court Wednesday as she told him what he had taken from her.

"Yao was our sun, our hope, our dreams, our future and our strength," Guihua Yu told Carlos Salazar Cruz, who sat at the defense table with his head bowed.

"You beast!" she shouted during the nearly 45-minute tongue-lashing.

"I just wanted to be able to hold her and see her. What I saw was a corpse, a dead body," she mourned.

"I wanted to die. There was no reason for me to live anymore. The pillar of my life had disappeared. The sky had fallen - all because of this beast. This beast sentenced her to death."

"You have destroyed our lives," Yu wailed. "Come back my daughter! My only child. I have lost my child. My child, my child."

Yu, 55, collapsed onto a court bench where she was consoled by friends and prosecutors.

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-Queens) arranged a special visa for Yu to come watch Queens Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter sentence Cruz to the maximum - 22 years to life - as part of a deal for his confession.

Buchter said afterwards that he would have liked to give Cruz the death penalty.

"I really had a hard time keeping it together. It was awful, awful," the judge said about the brutality of the attack.

Cruz, 29, confessed to grabbing Yu Yao, 23, at random on May 16, 2010 and dragging her by the hair into a Flushing alley, where he raped her and repeatedly bashed her head in with a metal pipe.

Yu Yao, who dreamed of becoming a lawyer to help her poor rural village in China, had been in America just two months when she was attacked.

Cruz, another immigrant pursuing the American Dream, blamed his troubles on the alcohol and crack cocaine that buoyed him during his forced separation from his wife and child in Mexico.

"I ask for forgiveness," Cruz said through a Spanish language translator. "God our Lord knows that I am completely repentant for my sins."

The weeping mother said through a Mandarin translator that nothing her daughter's killer could say would make her forgive.

In court, Buchter mocked Cruz's excuses.

"Her life was so cruelly and wantonly snuffed out by the senseless act of this barbaric defendant," Buchter said.

"He wasn't too drunk to strike the victim over the head with sufficient force to kill her. This is the crime of a sociopath, a psychopath, and not merely an alcoholic."

Buchter noted that the deliveryman slipped into the country illegally in 1998 and should have been deported.

"We needed this defendant in this country like we need the plague," Buchter said.

www.nydailynews.com

Man sentenced for brutal rape and murder
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Carolina Leid


FLUSHING, Queens (WABC) -- It was a dramatic and heart-wrenching day in a Queens courtroom.

A 23-year-old woman from China was raped and fatally beaten on a street in Flushing.

Wednesday, her killer was sentenced, and her mournful family was there.

"You have destroyed our lives," Guihua Yu, the victim's mother, cried in court.

Guihua Yu collapsed in court as she faced her daughter's murderer.

Because of what he did, she can't remember her daughter smiling in front of the Statue of Liberty, full of the hope of attaining the American dream.

29-year-old Carlos Cruz destroyed those hopes the day he beat Yu Yao with a pipe, dragged her into a Flushing alleyway where he brutally raped the 23-year-old woman then left her for dead.

"Come back my daughter, my only child," Yu cried.

Yao immigrated to the United States just two months before her murder.

She worked in a nail salon to save money to go to law school.

In May, the 23-year-old woman was on her way home from grocery shopping around 9:30 at night when Cruz savagely attacked her on 41st Road in Flushing.

He was caught casually walking away from the crime covered in blood and carrying the murder weapon.

"Without any reason that he's ever revealed he then decided to beat the life out of her. She was dragged screaming into a driveway. He left impressions on her skull from the pipe he used to kill her," the Assistant District Attorney said.

Yao died several days later before her mother could see her alive one last time.

Wednesday at sentencing, Cruz blamed drugs and alcohol for what he did.

"I feel destroyed, and I regret all that has happened," Cruz said.

The illegal Mexican immigrant pled guilty in February.

Just before reading his sentence, Judge Richard Buchter said if the law allowed it he would have sentenced Cruz to the death penalty.

"This is the crime of a psychopath, a sociopath. I find the verdict for the crime of murder in the second degree the defendant will not serve less than 22 years to a maximum of life in prison. This defendant has no assurance that he'll see the light of day," Judge Buchter said.

http://abclocal.go.com

Cruz, another immigrant pursuing the American Dream, blamed his troubles on the alcohol and crack cocaine that buoyed him during his forced separation from his wife and child in Mexico.

So his version of "the American Dream" was alcohol and crack? He could have stayed In Messico and chased the same dream for a whole lot cheaper! Forced Separation? BS! He LEFT them behind! Who "forced" him? GREED

He was caught casually walking away from the crime covered in blood and carrying the murder weapon.

Note "Casually walking", not staggering,WALKING!

Buchter noted that the deliveryman slipped into the country illegally in 1998 and should have been deported.

He's been here since '98? His excuse of "forced seraration" is a load. This is one time I would approve of a Foreign Country stepping in and suing our government.

Originally Posted by nomas

Cruz, another immigrant pursuing the American Dream, blamed his troubles on the alcohol and crack cocaine that buoyed him during his forced separation from his wife and child in Mexico.

So his version of "the American Dream" was alcohol and crack? He could have stayed In Messico and chased the same dream for a whole lot cheaper! Forced Separation? BS! He LEFT them behind! Who "forced" him? GREED

[quote:27s5c8id]
He was caught casually walking away from the crime covered in blood and carrying the murder weapon.

Note "Casually walking", not staggering,WALKING!

Buchter noted that the deliveryman slipped into the country illegally in 1998 and should have been deported.

He's been here since '98? His excuse of "forced seraration" is a load. This is one time I would approve of a Foreign Country stepping in and suing our government.[/quote:27s5c8id]


Spot on Nomas. Great analysis and accurate to a fault I am wagering...

This just makes me sick and so angry!