Pastor Admits Hacking Wife With Machete In Front Of Grandkids

YONKERS, NY — A former pastor from Yonkers who ran over his estranged wife and attacked her with a machete in front of her grandchildren pleaded guilty to manslaughter, Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark announced.

Victor Mateo of Yonkers, a former pastor at a church in the Bronx, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on November 17. He is due to be sentenced on January 5, to 23 years in prison and five years post-release supervision, with final orders of protection for the victim’s two grandchildren who witnessed the killing, according to the district attorney's office.

“The defendant and the victim, his wife, had been estranged for approximately a month when he mercilessly killed her in front of her two young grandchildren and bystanders in broad daylight," Clark said. "The victim’s grandchildren not only had to deal with the loss of their grandmother, but also with immense trauma after witnessing such cruel events."

According to investigators, on Oct. 3, 2019, the defendant parked his car near the home of his estranged wife, Noelia Mateo, in Throgs Neck. As the 58-year-old victim left her house to drive her grandchildren to school, Mateo struck her with his vehicle. The victim hid beneath her car, and the defendant got into her vehicle and ran her over with it. He then hacked her with a machete. She was taken to Jacobi Medical Center where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Her grandchildren, who were 11 and nine years old at the time, witnessed the entire attack.

The defendant fled the scene in the victim’s vehicle and was arrested a week later in Hazleton, Pennsylvania.