A deranged Soho man who suffocated and fatally strangled his 92-year-old roommate because she was snoring too loudly was sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison.
Enrique Leyva, 48, who appeared via video for the sentencing in Manhattan Supreme Court, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in July as part of a plea deal for the March 2018 slaying.
After suffocating Veronica Ivins with a pillow for 10 minutes, checking occasionally for a pulse, he strangled her with his bare hands to make sure she was dead, according to prosecutors.
He then called 911 and confessed, “I killed my roommate.”
Leyva, who has mental health issues, told police he snapped after hearing Ivins’ snoring from her room.
He had been invited to live in Ivins’ Sullivan Street apartment as her caretaker three years before the murder. After Leyva moved in, neighbors reported that Ivins and her apartment became increasingly untidy.



