Man Indicted for Woonsocket Woman's Stabbing Death

A 31-year-old man who allegedly stabbed a Woonsocket woman to death in May as her two children were present was indicted by the Providence County Grand Jury on murder charges this week.

Alvin Huggins was indicted Wednesday and is due to appear in court on a domestic murder charge on Nov. 4.

Huggins allegedly killed Yanira Flores, a mother of two children, in her Willow Street apartment as the children were present.

He was arrested in May after police tracked him down to an apartment in Dorchester, Mass.

Huggins, court records show, has served prison time for a prior assault when he stabbed a man in the neck.

In fact, Huggins has been charged with felony assault numerous times dating back to the early 2000s in addition to charges of credit card fraud and narcotics possession, among other charges.

Flores’ death is yet another case of domestic violence in Rhode Island and a clear sign that more needs to be done on the state and local levels to keep violent abusers away from victims, domestic violence workers said.

Flores’ was killed less than three weeks after the domestic murder of an East Providence woman on Mother’s Day.

“With each of these cases, the crimes were not isolated incidents but the final abusive acts in a pattern of violent behaviors perpetrated against these women by their abusers,” said Deborah DeBare, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

In Rhode Island, an alarming number of children are witnessing violence in the home. In 2010, children were present for 28 percent of domestic violence arrests, and children also accounted for 50 percent of the clients who stayed in domestic violence shelters that year.