A Yonkers man has pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter for running over his estranged wife with a vehicle and stabbing her with a machete, all in front her two grandchildren in 2019.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark says Victor Mateo, 65, a former pastor at the Christian Congregation The Redeemer Church in the Bronx, will to be sentenced in January 2022 to 23 years in prison and five years' post-release supervision. There are also orders of protection for the victim's two grandchildren, who witnessed the killing.

Investigators say Mateo ran over Noelia Mateo, 58, as she was trying to get her grandchildren to school. He then hacked at her with a machete. The victim was taken to Jacobi Medical Center and pronounced dead shortly after arrival. Her grandchildren, who were 11 and 9 at the time, witnessed the entire attack.

Mateo fled the scene in the victim's vehicle and was arrested a week later in Pennsylvania. "The defendant and the victim, his wife, had been estranged for approximately a month when he mercilessly killed her in front of her two young grandchildren and bystanders in broad daylight. The victim's grandchildren not only had to deal with the loss of their grandmother, but also with immense trauma after witnessing such cruel events. He pleaded guilty and will be sentenced in January 2022 to 23 years prison," says DA Clark.