A Bronx man was hauled in for questioning after a lover’s quarrel turned deadly, police said Saturday.
The man’s stepdaughter, 36, and her boyfriend, 32-year-old Christian Montes, got into a fight inside an apartment on Valentine Avenue near 187th Street in Fordham Heights at about 10:45 p.m. Friday, officials said.
That’s when the woman’s stepfather, 60, stepped in, cops said.
When police arrived, they found Montes outside the apartment with a stab wound to his chest. He was rushed to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The stepfather was also found slashed across the face, police said.
He was taken to the hospital for treatment — then hauled in for questioning, according to authorities.
Police recovered a knife at the scene, though it was not immediately clear who it belonged to, cops said.
Deborah Montes with a picture of her son ChristianJ.C.Rice“I’m going crazy. Right now I’m in shock, I can’t believe it. My son died, I can’t believe it,” Montes’ mother, Deborah Arce, 50, told The Post.
Montes had been staying at his girlfriend’s apartment in the week before his death, she said. Before that, he had spent several years in jail.
“He was a nice guy, but if you get with him the wrong way, he want to fight,” said Arce.
She told The Post that she had disapproved of Montes’ girlfriend.
“The girl was not good for him,” she said. “He [went] the wrong way with that lady.”
Neighbors at the Bronx apartment, where blood splatter and a bloody handprint lined the stairwell, said the couple were often heard fighting and smashing windows.
“They was always arguing. Stupid things,” said building resident Alberto Tavarez, 32, who witnessed the deadly attack.
“[Montes] fell down the stairs, and he had a puncture wound in his chest, and her father had a laceration,” he told The Post. “But they were always arguing, so we thought it was normal.”
Tavarez said Montes appeared drunk and “discombobulated.”
“The children saw everything,” he said. “I heard the screaming and then I heard slamming, and the next thing you know the door opens and he just comes down the stairs … and he’s trying to catch his breath.
“His eyes are rolling, he’s bleeding,” said Tavarez, who said the wound “looked like hamburger meat.”
“It was traumatizing,” he added.
“When I [saw] them take him out the building, he already looked lifeless,” another witness recalled.
The police investigation is ongoing.
