A Harlem woman has been charged with murder in the weekend stabbing of her boyfriend, who identified her as his assailant before he died, prosecutors announced Tuesday.
Michelle Hernandez, 44, stumbled out of her West 147th Street apartment on Sunday afternoon, bleeding from wounds to her chest and arm, banged on her neighbor’s door and grabbed her boyfriend, 47-year-old Alejandro Santos. He has been charged with murder.
“She stabbed me,” Santos told a neighbor who opened the door, then collapsed and said, “I feel like I’m going to pass out,” according to the complaint filed in Manhattan criminal court.
Hernandez then allegedly came out of the apartment and told a neighbor that Santos had been stabbed and where the knife was, then knelt in the victim’s ear and whispered, An assistant district attorney said at Hernandez’s arraignment Tuesday.
“Don’t tell the person who stabbed you or I’ll take you to jail,” she allegedly told him.
Santos was taken to Harlem Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
According to prosecutors, Hernandez was brought in for questioning and questioned twice by police, and both times he was confused about the facts of the situation, but he remained adamant throughout that Santos stabbed him. It is said that he continued to do so.
When police questioned her about Santos’ near-death claim to a neighbor that “she stabbed herself,” Hernandez told people that she had done it before stabbing her. He claimed that he said he intended to speak to him.
Hernandez had cuts on his hands possibly consistent with the use of a knife, and police recovered a security camera and a bloody knife during a search of the apartment, the ADA said.
She was charged Monday, with police citing a suspected “domestic dispute” that led to the stabbing.
According to prosecutors, the couple met several years ago when they lived together at a shelter, and moved in about two years ago.
During that time, the court also heard there was at least one incident in which 911 was called after Hernandez reportedly threatened to jump out of a window.
Hernandez has a history of drug use and violent and unstable behavior.
Previous incidents include kicking an eight-month pregnant woman in the stomach and breaking the arm of another shelter resident during a fight at the shelter where she lived in 2017, prosecutors said. It is said that it will be done. She was given a two-year suspended sentence, followed by a 10-month prison sentence.
She was ordered held without bail and is scheduled to return to court on May 22.
