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Pregnant Woman Allegedly Murdered By Boyfriend, Found Dead By New York Freeway
Vanessa Pierre was found dead near a Long Island highway with a pair of gray sweatpants tied around her throat.
A pregnant woman whose lifeless body was found at the side of a Long Island expressway last week was strangled and left there by her boyfriend, officials said.
Goey Charles, 29, allegedly choked his girlfriend, Vanessa Pierre, while pulled over on the shoulder of Horace Harding Expressway in the early morning hours of Oct. 23, according to the Queens District Attorney’s Office. The Long Island man later abandoned the pregnant woman — and the couple’s unborn child — on a sidewalk near the freeway, prosecutors claimed.
Surveillance cameras captured a man believed to be Charles pulling his Dodge Challenger over to the side of the freeway around 2:50 a.m.
"Charles exited the driver's seat of a 2019 white Dodge Challenger, which is registered in the name of the victim, Vanessa Pierre," the Queens County District Attorney’s Office said in a press release. "He moved to the backseat where Ms. Pierre could be seen moving on the video footage. And then, soon afterwards, all movement stopped and the victim appeared to lay across the backseat motionless."
Around 4:38 a.m., surveillance cameras again captured the man believed to be Charles dragging the unresponsive woman out of the car and to a nearby sidewalk.
“The defendant allegedly left the woman's dying body on the side of the roadway, returned to the vehicle and fled the scene," prosecutors said.
Just over an hour later, a passerby discovered Pierre with a pair of gray sweatpants tightened around her neck and “laying facedown on the sidewalk,” Chief Rodney Harrison of New York City Police Department said on Twitter. An autopsy in Pierre’s death is still pending.
“This is a heartbreaking case,” District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “A pregnant woman was allegedly killed by this defendant — the father of her unborn child. Her family is devastated. The defendant is in custody and will answer for his alleged actions.”
Pierre and Charles lived together in Long Island, relatives said. The 29-year-old's family said she was six months pregnant with a girl.
"Vanessa wanted a family,” Vanessa’s sister, Melissa Pierre, told Newsday. “She wanted kids. She was ready for all those things, and I guess she told him that he wanted those things, and I guess he told her he could give her those things, and they jumped right into it," she said. "My sister has a lot going for her, she has credit. She's a sweet girl. She's very kind. She's loved by everyone."
The grieving sibling accused Charles of being a “pathological liar.”
“She loved him and she wanted a family but I told her this man is not it,” Melissa Pierre told The New York Post in a separate interview. “I kept telling her this man is not it. Something was just off about him. He was a pathological liar. They moved really fast, been together about a year, less than that. From what it looked like, it looked like he wasn’t really working.”
Charles was taken into custody on Oct. 26, a spokesperson for the New York City Police Department confirmed with Oxygen.com. He faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted in Pierre’s death.
