Kety Sanchez’s friend Roselys Rodriguez said she couldn’t imagine Kety’s husband killing her and their child.
“He was nice.” Rodriguez said of the husband, Vincente Cordero. “I never would have thought he could do something so serious.”
Cordero, 34, stabbed Sanchez, 30, to death in their apartment on Morris Avenue and E. 183rd Street just before 8 a.m. on Wednesday, March 2. He then set a fire to their fourth-floor apartment that killed both the couple’s one-year-old daughter Keity and himself.
Rodriguez, 18, knew Sanchez from growing up together in the Dominican Republic. She said she knew Cordero for as long as the couple had been together, which was about four years.
“They were boring,” she said of the couple.
According to neighbor Marco Antonio Cabrera, 47, the incident started as a dispute between the couple.
“He got jealous,” he said. “He stabbed her, locked her in the apartment and then set it on fire.”
Sanchez was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where she died from the stab wounds. Cordero died at Westchester Medical Center as a result of burns from the fire.
“I was called by the 46th Precinct to let me know, as soon as they were on the scene,” Community Board 5 district manager Xavier Rodriguez said. “It’s tragic. That’s really the only reaction we can have.”
The rest of the details about the incident are still, for the most part, unknown.
“We don’t know what the facts are,” the DM said. “Until we know what all the fact are, it’s just a tragic situation.”
“Our role is to, if we can, be of assistance to the family,” he said. “We haven’t been asked yet, or approached. Depending on what they request, we stand ready to do whatever we can.”
An FDNY spokesman said it was a “quick fire, it only lasted about 40 minutes.” Neighboring apartments only suffered minimal damage from smoke and water leakage.
Most of Kety Sanchez’s family still lives in the Dominican Republic. Her immediate in New York consists of just one uncle.
Along with her daughter, she was eulogized at Eternity Funeral Services on East Gun Hill Road on Wednesday, March 9. After her memorial in the Bronx, her body will be taken back to her native country to be buried.
“They are waiting for her,” Roselys Rodriguez said.
