Overview
- Police say the attacks, hours apart late Thursday and early Friday, began with a 32-year-old woman stabbed in a Valley Stream home around 9 p.m., then a 42-year-old Wendy’s worker killed outside the Island Park restaurant about 12:30 a.m. Friday.
- Rony Yahir Alvarenga-Rivera, 22, approached officers at a Lynbrook 7-Eleven, told them he had killed someone, and was taken into custody with blood on his clothing and cuts on his hands, according to investigators.
- The defendant, who prosecutors say gave a confession, was charged with first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder and on Saturday pleaded not guilty in Hempstead, where a judge ordered him held without bail.
- Detectives report both victims suffered multiple stab wounds to the neck and torso and say the suspect knew each woman, with the investigation active as police characterize his state that night as anger.
- County officials pointed to reports that he came from El Salvador as an unaccompanied minor and cited Nassau’s ICE partnership known as 287(g), while police stressed there is no ongoing public threat and have not made immigration status part of the charges.