Tragic: Officer Kills Wife, Self in Front of Children
Fort Montgomery — The call came in Monday night as a domestic dispute at the Hudson View Terrace Mobile Home Park, just north of the Town of Highlands Police Department.
Minutes later, two officers pulled up alongside No. 86, a tidy, gray single-wide with festive Halloween signs planted in the lawn and a smiling paper skeleton on the door.
As the officers headed up the walkway, the front door swung open and four kids bolted outside, hollering for help.
Then the shooting started.
Officers had "no idea what they were walking into," said Officer-in-charge Randall Bailey.
What his cops walked into was the sad ending of an apparent murder-suicide. The frightened children's parents, police said, were dead on the kitchen floor.
The investigation is ongoing, but police believe Wilfredo Nieves Jr., 37, who worked as a police officer with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, used his Glock 9mm service revolver to fire several shots into his wife, Deborah Nieves, 39. He then fired one fatal shot into his own head, police said. Autopsy results will determine exactly how many shots struck Deborah and if drugs or alcohol were involved.
As news crews crowded the neighborhood yesterday, folks wondered what went wrong inside a seemingly quiet home in a well-kept, working-class community.
"I'm floored," said Annie Scott, the park manager and a town councilwoman. "(Wilfredo) didn't appear to be that type of a person."
The Nieveses bought their home new in 2002, said Scott, and always paid the rent on time. She knew Deborah as a stay-at-home mom, forever shuffling her four kids — ages 4 to 14 — from one sporting event to another.
"Mom's Taxi," said the bumper sticker on the back of her SUV, now parked in front of a home wrapped in yellow police tape. On the SUV's windshield, there was another sticker — a Port Authority police shield.
Wilfredo joined the Port Authority police in 2000 and was most recently assigned to George Washington Bridge patrols, according to Port Authority spokesman Pasquale DiFulco.
"He was always working. He seemed to work very, very long hours," said Scott.
"I don't like to think anybody would be capable of this," she said, "but he would be the last guy."
Bailey said the couple did not have a serious history of domestic disputes with the town police. "Maybe one or two in 2005," he said.
The couple's children were turned over to grandparents, Bailey said.
The Port Authority police, along with state police and the Orange County District Attorney's Office, are assisting town police with the investigation. (Source: Times Herald-Record-Alexa James)
Eight women allegedly died at the hands of a spouse or partner in a little more than a year in Orange, Ulster and Pike counties:
- Griselda Espinal, 38, a New York City police detective, was murdered by her husband in front of their three children in New Windsor on Aug. 11, 2006. He then killed himself.
- Irma Vega Soto, 27, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in Kingston on Oct. 5, 2006.
- Elena Heiberger, 32, was murdered by her husband, a New York City police officer, who then killed himself in their home in the Town of Wallkill on Dec. 5, 2006.
- Ruthann Schwander, 48, was murdered by her on-again, off-again boyfriend, William Plaza, on Dec. 9, 2006, in Ellenville.
- Fermina Nunez, 36, was murdered in her Middletown beauty salon on Dec. 30, 2006, in a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by her ex-boyfriend.
- Tracy D. Passaro, 37, was shot to death in her Saugerties home on Sept. 26. Her husband, Anthony, has been charged with murder.
- Barbara Dilger, 69, was shot to death at home in Matamoras, Pa., on Oct. 3. Her husband, William, faces murder charges.
- Deborah Nieves, 39, of Fort Montgomery, was shot to death Monday night by her husband, Port Authority police Officer Wilfredo Nieves, who then killed himself in their home, according to Town of Highlands police.
Safe Homes of Orange County operates a 24-hour domestic violence hot line at 888-503-4673.
