Hours after a strangled Bronx mom was laid to rest Tuesday, her abusive ex-cop husband was hauled out of his crash pad in handcuffs.
Eddy Coello was arrested by detectives at a relative's apartment in the Bronx and driven to a police stationhouse soon after the wrenching funeral of wife Tina Adovasio.
"The detectives knocked on the door, announced themselves as police," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said. "He came to the door."
Coello, 38, said nothing as he was busted on second-degree murder charges. He kept his head down as he was marched into the 45th Precinct stationhouse.
"It was just a matter of time," a law enforcement source said. "Outrageous he ever wore a badge."
A former Bronx housing cop, Coello was pushed off the force in 2000 amid reports he abused longtime girlfriend Glory Perez.
"It's wonderful news," Perez told the Daily News when told of Coello's arrest. "He needs to spend the rest of his life in jail."
"He used to walk around like he was high and mighty," added Scott Schnider, a longtime friend of the slain mom. "He thought he was going to get away with it. Now she can rest."
During the funeral, Adovasio's eldest son Joseph sat in the spot that Coello would have occupied - had he not been the chief suspect in his wife's murder.
And it was 17-year-old Joseph Adovasio's words, conveyed by a parish priest, that moved many to tears at the St. John the Evangelist Church in Mohopac, L.I.
"Tell everybody that she was a good mom," Father Pat Angelucci said, speaking for the grieving teen. "Tell everybody that she cared for her children first."
Angelucci said he spoke to the teenager on Thursday - a day after his 40-year-old mother's body was found dumped and barely clothed in the woods.
"He said to me, 'I wish my mom could see me grow up'," the priest said. "And I said to him, 'Joey, your mom does see you. Your mom is with you.'"
As the priest spoke, Adovasio's children - Joseph, Lexi, 15, Michael, 11 and Mia, 5 - looked longingly at the light-colored casket covered with a white cloth.
Coello returned to his old doorman job at a luxury building on E. 72nd St. after he lost his cop job. Tenants remember him as a "real Jekyll and Hyde" character - and a "compulsive liar."
"He told everybody in the building he was working down at the World Trade Center during 9/11," one tenant said. "When you think of all the real police officers and firefighters who died there, it shows a kind of psychosis."
Coello's short fuse eventually cost him his doorman job, sources said.
The accused strangler was questioned last week as a "person of interest," but refused to give investigators a DNA sample and Bronx prosecutors decided there wasn't enough evidence to charge Coello.
Asked if they had new evidence, Browne replied, "Sometimes there's just a comfort level with the information you have and how it's going to be presented."
Adovasio was last seen entering the Throgs Neck house she shared with Coello and their 5-year-old daughter on March 11, police sources said.
Coello had repeatedly been arrested for attacking Adovasio, once as she held their daughter. She took out an order of protection against him when she filed for divorce Feb. 25.
With Matthew Lysiak, Alison Gendar, Edgar Sandoval and Kerry Burke
I met this guy at the doctors office where he worked and did not like him at all he would give me this intimidating look that game me the creeps
ReplyDeleteJust murdered the mother of his kid, gets busted. and, this psychopath looks like he just came from the barber shop and had a shape up. what a real creep.
ReplyDelete