Through the children's eyes.
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http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2006/08/12/videoshooting.html
Overview From various srticles
...Ms. Espinal came to New York from the Dominican Republic more than two decades ago looking for a better life. She joined the Police Department in 1988 as a 20-year-old and worked her way up to the Manhattan North narcotics division...
...A LAW-ENFORCEMENT SOURCE SAID GRISELDA, AN 18-YEAR NYPD VETERAN, HAD REPORTED TO POLICE TWO "VIOLENT CONFRONTATIONS" BETWEEN THE PAIR IN THE PAST. IN ONE INCIDENT, FRANCISCO, A GARDENER AND TRUCKER, STABBED HER IN THE HAND...
...earlier that day Griselda had refused to sign some legal papers...
...Neighbors said that from outside they could hear Ms. Espinal shout, “I want you out of this house. Don’t come back!”...
..."The children were on the back deck, screaming, 'Help my mother! Help my mother!'...
..."I ran into the house and she was lying in a pool of blood...
..."I tried to lift her head. She was alive, but she couldn't speak. I [could] just hear Jackie saying, 'Just do something for my mother!' What could I do?"...
..."I held her hand, told her to stay with us," said Annmarie.... "I tried to figure out where the wounds were. But there was so much blood...
...She said Francisco, 37, stalked off...
..."Then the oldest boy told me his father was going to get his wife's gun"...
...The kids, whose ages range from 4 to 11, ran outside and screamed, "He's killing her! He's got her gun!"...
[Francisco] was standing over her body and I looked at him and he looked at me," Ann Marie recounted. Francisco had also stabbed his wife repeatedly. Ann Marie said she got the couple's other two kids - Kenny, 12, and Martin, 6, and ran to the back yard with them....
..."He was blank. How do you reason with someone like that?"...
...The daughter of a stabbed NYPD detective flung herself across her bleeding mother - screaming "No! No! No!"...
...[He] grabbed her by the arm, flung her aside and aimed the 9 mm Glock at his cop wife, Griselda...
...Francisco also went outside, stood on the lawn and pointed the gun at a responding police officer...
..."The father put the gun up to his face, and Kenny said, 'Papi, no, no!' said 12-year-old Brandon Miller, one of several neighbors who saw Francisco Espinal take his own life. "Then [Kenny] put his hand over his eyes because he didn't want to see it"...
...While the officer scurried for cover, Francisco dropped to his knees, put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger, police said...
...The stepmother of the man who killed his cop wife and himself in front of their young children said yesterday "no one has the blame" for the wrenching murder-suicide...Cop Kid Saw Ma Slain: 'No! No!' Girl Cried
NYPOST.COM
By John Doyle, Perry Chiaramonte and Heather Gilmore
August 13, 2006
The daughter of a stabbed NYPD detective flung herself across her bleeding mother - screaming "No! No! No!" - as her father calmly took his wife's service gun, pushed the child away and shot his wife in the face, a witness told The Post yesterday.
Jackie Espinal, 8, pleaded in vain with her father, Francisco as he grabbed her by the arm, flung her aside and aimed the 9 mm Glock at his cop wife, Griselda, 38. Francisco later turned the gun on himself.
"I saw Jackie holding her stomach and I thought she was hit while she cried, 'He shot her in the face!' " said distraught next-door neighbor Ann Marie, who did not want to give her last name.
Ann Marie said she was preparing for her daughter's party in her back yard around 2 p.m. Friday on the quiet street in New Windsor, Orange County, when she first heard the three Espinal kids repeatedly screaming, "Help my mother!"
"I ran into the house and she was lying in a pool of blood . . . [Francisco] was standing over her body and I looked at him and he looked at me," Ann Marie recounted. Francisco had also stabbed his wife repeatedly.
Ann Marie said she got the couple's other two kids - Kenny, 12, and Martin, 6, and ran to the back yard with them. Jackie didn't want to leave. "She was screaming and lying on her mother," Ann Marie said.
"I tried to lift her head. She was alive, but she couldn't speak. I [could] just hear Jackie saying, 'Just do something for my mother!' What could I do?"
She said Francisco, 37, stalked off, but then came back, holding his wife's gun, which he got from her bedroom closet.
She looked at Francisco and couldn't think of anything "I could tell him to calm him down . . . He looked blank."
Ann Marie said she was still cradling Griselda's head as the children stood by screaming.
Local cops arrived and were standing on Guernsey Drive with their guns drawn as Francisco walked towards them holding the gun.
Kenny broke free from Ann Marie and ran toward his father, screaming, "Papi! Papi!"
Francisco then dropped to his knees, put the semiautomatic in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Neighbors said the couple, from the Dominican Republic, were going through a messy divorce and earlier that day Griselda had refused to sign some legal papers.
A law-enforcement source said Griselda, an 18-year NYPD veteran, had reported to police two "violent confrontations" between the pair in the past. In one incident, Francisco, a gardener and trucker, stabbed her in the hand.
Additional reporting by Stacey Szewczyk
john.doyle@nypost.com
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/cop_kid_saw_ma_
slain_regionalnews_john_doyle______perry_chiaramonte____and_heath
er_gilmore.htm
It's tragedy times 2, sez cop-slay kin
BY NICOLE BODE
New York Daily News, NY
August 14, 2006
The stepmother of the man who killed his cop wife and himself in front of their young children said yesterday "no one has the blame" for the wrenching murder-suicide.
"It's a double tragedy," said Wanda Almonte, who is married to Francisco Espinal's father.
Espinal, 37, snapped Friday, stabbing and shooting his estranged wife, NYPD Detective Griselda Espinal, 38, before putting her gun in his mouth and firing as their three children begged him to stop.
Almonte said Espinal's dad, Rafael, was unaware of the bad blood between his son and Griselda Espinal, an 18-year NYPD veteran who worked at the Manhattan North narcotics division.
He loved Griselda "like a daughter," Almonte said.
Neighbors have said the couple was in the midst of a hostile divorce.
The conflict exploded when Espinal stormed the Orange County home in New Windsor that he once shared with his wife. He stabbed her in the back with a kitchen knife several times, then shot her in the back of the head with her service weapon, police and neighbors said.
Then he walked outside and turned the gun on himself as Kenny, 12; Jacqueline, 8, and Martin, 6, watched, pleading with him to stop, neighbors said.
Neighbors said Espinal was enraged that his wife refused to sign legal papers he had brought to the house.
The children are staying with a maternal uncle while the family decides who will care for them, Almonte said.
www.behindthebluewall.blogspot.com
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/443397p-373295c.html
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