Pastor Sentenced to 23 Years in Prison for Brutal Murder of Estranged Wife
So, does the conservative Christian and conservative secular pro-marriage, pro-Nuclear Family propaganda I heard growing up – that marriage makes people more mature and godly, and society better – ring true, in light of all the news stories I am forever seeing of married people who beat and murder one another, or who are involved in skeezy, disgusting, swinging or polyamorous relationships? (No, no it does not.)
A lot of Christian dating advice I recall being exposed to in the 1980s and 1990s assured me that so long as I remained chaste, godly, and faithful, that in due time, God would send me “Mr. Right.”
Well, I lived a godly, chaste, and faithful life, but I remain someone who never did get married into my 50s.
The flip side of this was the Christian material that suggested that if you were NOT married by age 25 or 30 or so, it must be that God is not allowing you to meet your Mr. Right (or your Miss Right, if you’re a guy) because you’re obviously failing in some way – you’re living in sin, or whatever.
Then you see these news stories about married people (some of whom are professing Christians) who produce child porn, or who rape kids, or who murder their spouses, and you realize, if God did not withhold a spouse from those scuzz buckets, there’s obviously not some heavenly litmus test you have to meet to “merit” a spouse from God.
(Link): Pastor sentenced to 23 years in prison for brutal murder of estranged wife
By Anugrah Kumar, Christian Post Contributor
A New York pastor who ran over his estranged wife with her car and then repeatedly attacked her with a machete in front of her grandchildren has been sentenced to 23 years in prison.
The pastor, 65-year-old Victor Mateo, who led Christian Congregation The Redemptor, Inc. in the Bronx, “not only took the life of a Bronx grandmother but also inflicted a possible lifetime of trauma to her grandchildren who were witnesses to this horrific crime,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said as Judge Margaret Clancy of Bronx Supreme Court sentenced him to 23 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision, according to the prosecutors.
Last November, Mateo pleaded guilty before the court to one count of first-degree manslaughter for killing his estranged wife, Noelia, 58, who was found unconscious with multiple lacerations to her body on Oct. 3, 2019.
Noelia’s grandchildren were 11 and 9 years old at the time.
…In his statement, Noelia’s son, Kenneth Zunigia Fernandez, said Mateo allegedly demanded that his wife hand over all of her earnings from her cheesecake business and threatened violence when she decided to leave him.
“Mateo used the Bible, religion and his ‘pastor’ role to manipulate not only my mother, but his church members,” he was quoted as saying.
…According to the investigation, on the morning of Oct. 3, 2019, Mateo parked his vehicle near Noelia’s home, and as she left her house to drive her grandchildren to school, he struck her with his vehicle. The victim hid beneath her car, and Mateo got into her vehicle and ran her over with it. He then hacked her with a machete.
Related:
(Link): Baptist Preacher Hires His Mistress To Set His Wife On Fire
(Link): Church-Goer and Her Pastor Lover Killed Her Husband So They Could Be Together
(Link): Georgia Pastor Charged With Raping Ten Year Old Girl at Homeless Shelter He Founded
(Link): Calvary Chapel Pastor in Florida Pleads Guilty to Murdering his Mistress
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