Police convinced husband killed Bronx mom found dead

The noose is tightening.

Cops are convinced an abusive ex-cop killed his wife and dumped her body near a Westchester highway -- and were beefing up the case against their only suspect yesterday, police sources said.

"We know who did it -- he did it," a police source said of Eddy Coello. "We're working on the chain of evidence and connecting all the dots."

Coello, 38, a former housing cop forced into retirement in 2000 over a domestic dispute with a previous wife, is crashing with his mother near the spot where his estranged wife Tina Adovasio's body was found Wednesday, another police source said.


Adovasio, 40, disappeared March 11 from the couple's Bronx home, with Coello the last to see her alive. She was found along the Taconic Parkway in Yorktown Heights. An autopsy found she had been strangled and suffered blunt-force trauma to her head and chest.

The Bronx District Attorney's Office yesterday would say only that the investigation into the grisly homicide was continuing.

Coello, registered as a physician's assistant with orthopedic doctors at Westmed Medical Group in White Plains, has been "suspended without pay pending disposition on this matter," a spokeswoman said.

His lawyer, Renee Hill, insisted he's "available" if authorities want him for questioning. The second police source said cops were not tailing him.

The evidence building against him starts with a record of abuse. The ex-cop was busted twice for domestic incidents -- assault in 2007 and criminal mischief in 2006 -- against Adovasio. He also was charged with harassment in 2005.

Adovasio's lawyer, Michael Lease, has told The Post that the couple married 18 months ago, but that his client filed for divorce in February.

"It haunts me," Lease said. "They were together for seven years. She worked two jobs. It is amazing to me . . . You carry yourself in the workplace, and all of a sudden, this one person is able to reduce you to a child."

The couple has a 5-year-old daughter, Mia, who now lives with her maternal grandmother in upstate Holmes, Lease said.

Adovasio has three children from her previous marriage to Joe Adovasio of The Bronx. They were divorced in 2000.

Coello voluntarily showed up at the 45th Precinct station house in The Bronx on Thursday. He left after 24 minutes, refusing to submit his DNA or look at pictures pertaining to the case.

Sources say investigators have collected "bodily fluid" from Coello's car and have images of him from a surveillance video at the house the warring couple shared in Throggs Neck just hours after Adovasio went missing.

Sources say Coello is seen hauling out large trash bags.