CORONA — A man stabbed his estranged wife to death in her apartment building Thursday evening, wrote a fake suicide note and later tried to clean up the bloody mess when he went to work.
Maria Paguay was found by her 19-year-old son with several stab wounds in her basement apartment in a home on 50th Avenue, near Junction Boulevard, just after 6 p.m. on Thursday, police and the Queens District Attorney's office said.
A large knife was found near her body, the DA’s office said.
Police said her husband, Luis Paguay, 47, allegedly stabbed his wife multiple times in the neck and chest between the night of Dec. 3 and the time her body was found — then went to his job at Ducale Restaurant in Whitestone, where he worked as a dishwasher.
He also left a fake suicide note in his wife's name, police said.
Video from the restaurant showed him washing blood from his shoes in a kitchen sink, the DA’s office said.
A manager at the restaurant, Claudia Castelli, said Paguay worked at Ducale for about three months and came in Thursday night as usual, and she and other employees didn't notice any blood on him.
“The only thing that we noticed is he was more quiet than before,” she said. “And he had a couple of scratches on [his] face and he told the cook it was [from] his daughter, the 2-year-old.”
Luis Paguay and his wife were estranged, and he lived in another apartment nearby in Corona. Police were called for a fight between the couple in 2011, but the result was not clear.
Paguay was awaiting arraignment Friday afternoon and will be charged with second-degree murder, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and tampering with evidence.
If convicted, he faces up to 25 years to life in prison, according to the DA's office.
