RIVERSIDE MAN SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS TO LIFE FOR MURDER

(SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y.) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced Bayron Fajardo-Gonzalez was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for murdering his girlfriend in August 2020 in front of her 9-year-old daughter. 

“This defendant brutally terrorized and murdered the innocent victim in front of her terrified daughter,” said Tierney. “Today’s outcome cannot change that. However, it does ensure that the defendant will serve a significant sentence and will be called to account for his cowardly actions.”

According to court filings and statements by the defendant, on August 10, 2020, Fajardo-Gonzalez, 34, attacked the victim after she had arrived back to the couple’s residence with her 9-year-old daughter. The victim, Tania Fox, 45, and the defendant, who was not the child’s father, had been arguing earlier in the evening and once home, the victim and her daughter locked themselves in the child’s bedroom to avoid the defendant. 

After being unable to gain entry to the child’s bedroom, Fajardo-Gonzalez went outside and broke a window to the child’s bedroom.  By doing so, the defendant forced the victim and her daughter to run out of her room and run up the stairs to a small attic and hide.  Fox quietly called her cousin and told her “…if anything happens to me, Bayron is guilty.  Please take care of [my daughter].”  The defendant followed after them, initially barging into a tenant’s room demanding to know where Fox was.  Fajardo-Gonzalez then entered the attic area and stabbed Fox multiple times in the chest while her daughter was standing next to her.  The child escaped the attic and called 911, as did the tenant.  While the child was on the phone calling 911, the victim could be heard screaming in the background.  Officers from the Southampton Town Police Department quickly arrived and observed Fajardo-Gonzalez walking down the stairs from the attic covered in the victim’s blood.  The defendant admitted he stabbed Fox.

He was sentenced today before Suffolk County Court Judge Anthony Senft.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney John Scarglato of the Narcotics Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Melissa Grier of the of the Child Abuse and Domestic Violence Bureau.

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Criminal complaints and indictments are merely accusatory instruments.

Defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. No one is above the law.

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