Authorities said Lauren Pazienza, 26, evaded authorities for nearly two weeks.
Prosecutors said Tuesday that the woman accused of brutally beating the 87-year-old New York City Voice coach deleted her wedding website and hid in her parents' home after the alleged assault, apparently from authorities. to protect.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Justin McNabney said in a statement that 26-year-old Lauren Pazienza is also alleged to have deleted her social media accounts and stopped using her cellphone.
McNabney said Pazienza surrendered to police after an anonymous tipster informed officers of his location. She was charged with first-degree murder and second-degree assault in the March 10 incident that killed Barbara Maier Gustern.
McNabney said Gastern, who later died, told officers that the man, later identified as Pazienza, approached her near West 28th Street and 8th Avenue before forcibly pushing her onto the sidewalk. said an insult.
McNabney said the incident happened without provocation. Additional details about a possible motive were not immediately available.
McNabney said security video showed Pazinza leaving the scene as Gastern was bleeding. McNabney said that Pazienza was captured on video nearby physically in a brawl with a man who was believed to be her fiancé, and was later seen driving an ambulance to the spot where the allegations were made. It was alleged he had pushed Gustern, McNabney said.
McNabney said she and her fiancé, who were to be married in June, were then captured on video leaving Manhattan from Penn Station.
Pazienza is accused of running away from his home in Queens to his parents' house and deleting his social media accounts and his wedding site.
"From that point on, the defendants have made every effort to avoid apprehension," McNabney said in the statement. "She even shut down her wedding website, despite the fact that she is due to get married in June this year."
On Friday, police released clear photographs of the woman wanted in the night-time attack.
After the tipster contacted officers, detectives knocked on the parents' front doors on Monday, McNabney said.
McNabney said that after Pazienza's father told police she was not there, her lawyer contacted officers and arranged for her to surrender.
A message left on a Long Island phone number listed as a relative of Pazienza was not immediately returned. His lawyer also did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The lawyer told reporters that the push may have been accidental.
According to NBC New York, the lawyer said, "Whether it was a push, a push, or a kick or someone tripped—the evidence on that isn't solid at all."
Gastern died on 15 March. AJ Gastern, her grandson, who said she suffered traumatic brain damage, told NBC New York that "she was a force of nature" and "she was a little ball of the energy building community everywhere."
He told the station, "Whoever has done this, I am still praying for you, and the karma wave you have taken is incredible." "Then God help you."
Gastern was affectionately regarded in New York's theater community. As The New York Times reports, he played in the 2019 Broadway musical "Oklahoma!" Coached the cast of the revival of He also once coached the rock singer Debbie Harry of the group Blondie.