Nassau Police shared details Saturday about the suspect in the stabbing deaths of two women more than 24 hours earlier.
Rony Yahir Alvarenga Rivera, 22, is charged with First Degree and Second Degree Murder, Police Chief Patrick Ryder told reporters. “Both females were were killed by multiple stab wounds to the neck and torso,” he said.
Authorities say Alvarenga Rivera knew both victims. One of the women, a 42-year-old, was killed while taking out garbage at the Wendy’s restaurant where she worked at 33 Austin Blvd. in Island Park. Alvarenga Rivera also worked at the Wendy’s. The woman killed at that location was a mother of two children, ages 8 and 1 1/2.
Officers answering a 9-1-1 call found her body outside the eatery around 12:30 A.M. Friday. “When the officers responded, they observed a lady, a young lady, with blood,” said George Darienzo, Commanding Officer of the Nassau Police homicide unit. Efforts to revive the woman failed.
Alvarenga Rivera lived at the same apartment building as the other victim, a 32-year-old. She was found stabbed to death at her home on West Mineola Ave. in Valley Stream. Her body was discovered shortly after 3:00 A.M. Friday. Investigators think she was killed Thursday night around 9:00 P.M.
The names of both victims were being withheld Saturday afternoon until loved ones could be notified. Police said Alvarenga Rivera and the Valley Stream victim each rented bedrooms. “As far as a relationship, I’m not aware of specific domestic relationship between those two.”
When asked about a possible motive for the killings, Darienzo replied, “I’ll sum it up in one word: anger.” He did not elaborate.
At the news conference, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman slammed what he called “open borders” immigration policies under prior presidential administrations. He says Alvarenga Rivera came to the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor a decade ago, when he was 12. He is a native of El Salvador and has no known gang connection, said Darienzo.
“In 2022, the federal government had a program where any unaccompanied minors that were in the United States automatically would receive papers that let them stay here legally in the form, I believe, of a green card,” Blakeman said.
Blakeman, a Republican, is running for governor against incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat.
“It’s scary, it’s very scary,” said Angela Bleuler of Valley Stream, who lives near the scene of the apartment stabbing. “I’ve lived here my whole life and this is too close to home”
A woman speaking to NBC New York near that crime scene said she learned about the Wendy’s attack on social media, “and i thought that was bad enough. I had no idea it was tied to anything here.”
Nassau Police say the man who they believes is responsible for both deaths was apprehended at a 7-Eleven store on Atlantic Ave. in Lynbrook. “While we were at that scene (in Valley Stream), we received information that an individual who was stopped at 169 Atlantic Avenue in Lynbrook, he asked to see the police, said Darienzo.
“When the police arrived, he said he had killed somebody that night.”
“I am shocked. It’s horrible. This is very quiet. I don’t expect anything like that here,” the woman near the Valley Stream location told News 4.
“The world is a crazy place, and you can’t really be too sure of the people that are directly in front of you sometimes, you know,” added neighbor Rumeal Richards. “So it’s a little scary.”
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