Boyfriend Arrested After His Pregnant Girlfriend is Found Strangled to Death.
Kelvin Philp, 25, of Long Island has been arrested after witnesses say they saw him dragging the lifeless body of his girlfriend from his car. The body of 27-year-old Tatiana Walton was found dumped in front of her home on a Brooklyn sidewalk last Wednesday.
The witnesses say that Philp pulled up in his car around 1:40am, dragged Walton's body from his vehicle and left her laying lifeless on the sidewalk. He then drove to a home in Queens where he left behind a 2-year-old boy, that he shares with Walton, in front of a home.
According to the NY Times:
"A friend of Ms. Walton’s, Eva Salazar Fierro, said that Ms. Walton had been in a “very toxic” relationship with an on-again, off-again boyfriend whom Ms. Fierro knew as “Kal.”
Ms. Fierro, who said she had been Ms. Walton’s supervisor at retail jobs at Century 21 and Sunglass Hut in Manhattan starting in 2013, recalled that Ms. Walton would fall out of touch with friends and colleagues for months at a time because of how possessive her boyfriend was.
Ms. Fierro also said she had once noticed a bruise on Ms. Walton’s chest, and had asked her about it. Ms. Walton, Mr. Fierro said, indicated that her boyfriend had gotten mad and pushed her.
Her own experience as a victim of domestic violence made her worry that Ms. Walton was being abused, Ms. Fierro said.
“The way that I acted when I was physically abused, I used to see it in her,” Ms. Fierro recalled."
Philp was arrested Thursday afternoon by police in Suffolk County; Philp lives in Shirley on Long Island. He made his first court appearance on Friday and was charged with second-degree murder. Court records state that Walton had been strangled and was pregnant at the time of her death. It's uncertain how far along Walton was in her pregnancy but she was described as being "visibly pregnant".
Their 2-year-old son, Ozaiah Philp, has been placed in the custody of the state.
If convicted, Philp faces a 15-25 year sentence for murdering the mother of his children.