NYC Woman Fatally Stabbed After Screaming for Help; Boyfriend Charged

A New York City woman's panicked screams woke her neighbors shortly before her death early Sunday, but they couldn't locate her to help.

Instead, they called police, who discovered the 23-year-old woman had been repeatedly stabbed, and nearly decapitated, after fighting with the boyfriend she was leaving, according to reports.

"She was screaming for quite a while," Dutch tourist Yoost Bohnen, 33, who was staying nearby, told The New York Times. "She was in a lot of distress."

Police broke into the Lower East Side apartment that Sarah Coit shared with boyfriend Raul Barrera, 33, around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and found her bleeding on the living room floor, the New York Daily News said.

Coit died at a hospital, and Barrera, in bloodstained clothes, turned himself in at a police station, The Wall Street Journal reported. He was charged with second-degree murder.

Barrera, who had been living with Coit for about two years and works in public relations, told police that "something bad happened" during their fight, the Journal reported.

Barrera made a videotaped confession in which he said he was attacked by Coit with a knife as she got ready to move out of their apartment, the Journal reported, citing an unidentified law enforcement official. He told authorities that her parents, from tony Greenwich, Conn., were due to arrive on Sunday to help Coit move, the paper said.

He said Coit cut him with a kitchen knife before he got the knife away from her and stabbed her, the official told the Journal. Barrera fled and called his father, who advised him to turn himself in, the Journal said.

Barrera appeared in court for arraignment today and did not enter a plea, the Daily News reported. He was on suicide watch.

"It's a horror beyond words," his lawyer, Paul Feinman, told the paper. "His dad told him to do the right thing and he did."

Neighbors heard yelling and tried to help the woman. The Dutch tourist told the New York Post he heard, "Help me! Help me!

"It went on for quite a while, at least 20 minutes," he told the paper, which identified him as Joost Bohner. "People from the building were yelling out, 'Where are you? What apartment?' She never answered them, and people started calling 911."

A 15-year-old who lives above the couple's apartment, Jason Figueroa, said he heard fighting and called 911.

"She was like, 'Stop! Get off of me!'" he told the Daily News. "She was yelling, and then she just got quiet."

Police told neighbors to look away when they brought Coit out of the building, but for some it was too late.

"Her whole neck was cut all the way," Briana Andalore, 20, told the Daily News. "Her head was almost cut off."

The couple had been heard arguing in the past but never this loudly, the Daily News said. Police had never been called to the apartment before, the paper said.

In January, police were called to a location where Coit said she and Barrera were in a verbal dispute, the Journal reported. Barrera was arrested in March 2010 for an assault on a male friend who had obtained an order of protection against him, the paper reported.

Coit worked at a Lacoste store in midtown Manhattan and attended Hunter College up until a year ago, reports said.

The superintendent of Coit's former home on the Upper East Side described her as a "nice kid" who was busy with homework.

"It's a shame what happened," Derek Guadalupe told the Daily News. "It's sad. She had a future ahead of her."