A woman beaten senseless with a crowbar by her abusive husband at a Washington Heights bus stop has died, police said Monday.
Maria Kelly, 49, died Friday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia, four days after her husband, Julio Aponte, 63, repeatedly bashed her in the head at W. 163rd St. and Fort Washington Ave. about 7 a.m. on June 14.
“How dare you cheat on me?” Aponte yelled at Kelly as he unleashed the disturbing early morning assault, which happened around 7 a.m.
Manhattan prosecutors charged Aponte with second-degree attempted murder and first-degree assault at his arraignment two days after the attack. A judge held him without bail.
Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Levinson said the Washington Heights man waited for Kelly outside their building and began battering her in the head with a crowbar once she walked out “even after she laid unconscious on the ground.”
As shocked witnesses called 911, Aponte sped off on his motorcycle, then stopped a short time later, called 911, and turned himself in. Police found the crowbar, wrapped in plastic, as well as Aponte’s backpack at the scene of the attack, cops said.
Prosecutors said Aponte called someone after the attack — it was not clear who — and confessed to what he had done during a rambling 13-minute phone call. He confessed a second time under questioning by the NYPD, they said.
Kelly was rushed to the hospital with head trauma from which she could not recover. The gory attack left her with skull fractures from the repeated blows to her head, and she suffered multiple heart attacks as a result of the trauma, prosecutors said.
Police said the case is now a homicide and charges against Aponte will likely be upgraded.
The suspect has no arrest record and police had never responded to the couple’s home for any arguments.
But Levinson said Aponte has a history of violence towards women; in a previous marriage in the Dominican Republic, he stalked his wife, threatened her on multiple occasions, and once went after her with an ax, prosecutors said.
The couple’s neighbors told the Daily News that Aponte was a heavy drinker, while Kelly was a devoted mother to a teenage son.