New York City, NY: The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says that the teen squatter couple who killed a New York mother when she found them living in the apartment she had received went on a shopping spree with her stolen credit cards.
The shocked son of Nadia Vitels, 52, found her body in a duffel bag tucked under a pile of coats in her 19th floor East 31st Street apartment on March 14. This was revealed by Fox News Digital. The scene of the crime had only her pet dog walking alone.
Halley Tejada, 19, and Kensley Alston, 18, drove Vitels’ Lexus SUV away from the scene of the crime and headed toward Pennsylvania. Police caught the two thieves nine days later after using her credit cards to go on a shopping spree. In a news release, District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that they bought clothes, food, headphones, a PS5, and a diamond ring.
According to their charges, Tejada and Alston went to court last Thursday and were charged with second-degree murder, burglary, robbery, criminal possession of stolen goods, grand theft, and concealment of a human corpse.
Authorities say that Vitels was stomped to death and then stuffed into the bag while she was still alive. Newsweek says that when she was found, her leg was sticking out of the bag and cords were around her neck and body.
Marketer Vitels used to run tennis star Maria Sharapova’s candy line. On March 10, she started moving into the apartment after just getting back from a trip to Spain. Fox News Digital said it had been empty for three or four months after her mother died.
Court papers say that the two squatters were seen on security footage less than 90 minutes after Vitels dropped off her things with a big pink suitcase.
After two days, Vitels met the squatters face-to-face. Prosecutors say she told them to leave, but Tejada reportedly screamed that he was going to kill her.
Although she ran to the bedroom window, Tejada caught her and threw her to the ground. They found her body in the apartment two days later and saw a big crack in the wall where he had stomped her to death, Bragg wrote in his news release.
According to what the prosecutors wrote, medical officials found that she had a brain injury, multiple facial fractures, two broken ribs, and bruises on her head.
As a result of an accident in the stolen car, U.S. Marshals caught the two people in Lower Paxton Township. Tejada did not have car insurance, so the car was seized. A few days later, when the license plates were looked at, police found that the car had been reported stolen from New York.
Both Tejada and Alston were held without bail until they could go back to court.
At his mom’s funeral, Vitels’ 23-year-old son Michael Medvedev said that she was “so excited” to be “getting ready to move to New York City where she would conquer the world.”
“Nadia Vitels was moving into a new apartment to start a new part of her life when she was killed by Kensly Alston and Halley Tejada. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends as they continue to grieve her death,” Bragg wrote in his news release. “My Office will secure justice for Nadia Vitels.”
