Nationwide — Seraphina Pereira, a 35-year-old African American mother of four from New York, was found dead in a shallow grave at a Queens waterfront park five days after she disappeared. Police identified her death as a homicide after an autopsy revealed gunshot wounds to her head, neck, and torso. Police also took a person of interest into custody as the investigation continued.
Her body was discovered around 9:40 p.m. Saturday in Rockaway Community Park near the Jamaica Bay shoreline, close to Beach 58th Street and Almeda Avenue. Her remains had begun to decompose when authorities found her buried at the site. The New York City Medical Examiner’s Office later determined that she died from gunshot wounds to her head, neck, and torso. Her death was ruled a homicide.
Her family had been searching for her since October 19, when she left her apartment on Beach 54th Street around 11 a.m. and never returned. Relatives distributed missing-person flyers throughout the neighborhood and searched nearby areas in hopes of finding her. Her sister, Davonna Gray, traveled from Albany to help with the search. Gray said the family even went to the beach with flashlights because Pereira loved spending time there. Instead, they learned that she had been found dead.
According to the New York Daily News, police initially searched Pereira’s apartment Monday evening after receiving information that a person of interest might be barricaded inside. A large police response followed, but officers found the apartment empty. Authorities later took the individual into custody nearby. No charges had been filed as of Monday evening, and investigators had not publicly disclosed further details about the person’s possible connection to the killing.
Pereira was raising three of her four children in the Rockaways. Her youngest children were a 4-year-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, while her other son was 13. Her oldest son, 14, has a disability and lives in a facility in Yonkers. The family now faces the loss of a mother who devoted much of her life to her children while also enjoying dancing and exploring new places, her sister said.
Gray described her sister as someone who continued smiling despite the hardships she experienced. Pereira had lost the father of her two oldest children to a heart attack about six years earlier, and the family also lost their mother four years ago. At the time Pereira disappeared, she was reportedly in the process of ending her relationship with the father of her two youngest children. Gray said the family was devastated by the killing and struggled to understand how anyone could take the life of a mother who meant so much to her children. Her killing has left her family grieving while they await further answers from investigators.