Lawyer: NYC Man 'Remorseful' After Stabbing Death of Sarah Coit

The man accused of fatally stabbing his 23-year-old girlfriend with a kitchen knife and fracturing her skull in their New York City apartment turned himself in at his father's urging and is remorseful and upset, according to published reports.

Raul Barrera was ordered held without bail on a second-degree murder charge in the early Sunday slaying of girlfriend Sarah Coit. He was "extraordinarily subdued, remorseful, very, very quiet," his lawyer, Paul Feinman, told The Wall Street Journal on Monday.

Barrera, a 33-year-old public relations professional, was "understandably upset about the entire circumstances" surrounding Coit's death, he told the paper.

Prosecutors say he "violently and horribly stabbed (Coit) to death and then bashed her head in and then left while she was still alive," according to reports.

Neighbors woke to Coit's screams around 2:30 a.m. Sunday and called police, who broke in and found her on the floor bleeding. She died later at a hospital. Authorities said Barrera was heading to Penn Station and called his father, who advised him "to turn himself in," Assistant District Attorney William Beesch said, according to the New York Daily News.

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

Barrera, who surrendered a short time later, did not enter a plea in court Monday and was placed on suicide watch, according to reports.

He told authorities he used a kitchen knife to attack his girlfriend after she attacked him first, the Journal reported, saying he made a videotaped confession. Coit had been planning to move out of their Lower East Side apartment when they began fighting.

Barrera tried to ruin Coit's face, police sources told the Daily News, saying he used kitchen knives to gouge her mouth and jaw, using so much force the tip of a blade broke.

"It was pure anger," one of the sources told the paper. "He didn't want her to leave, and he didn't want her to be beautiful for anyone else."

Coit, described as "amazing" and "gorgeous" by friends, died of stab wounds to her torso, the Journal reported. The criminal complaint said a gaping stab wound to her left side left her internal organs visible, and her skull was fractured, The Associated Press reported. Several knives were recovered.

Coit, who graduated in 2005 from Greenwich High School in the tony Connecticut town, had attended Hunter College and was working in sales at a Lacoste store in midtown Manhattan, reports said.

She ran cross country in high school and was remembered by a former coach as a kind-hearted girl who easily made friends.

"Running was a big part of her life then, and she contributed a lot to the team," Bill Mongovan told the Greenwich Time.

Her former cross country teammates were shocked by her death, friend Sarah Conti told the Daily News.

"She was a gorgeous girl," Conti told the paper. "She was amazing. She was beautiful. I know people say it a lot and it sounds like a cliche, but she really was."

A former boyfriend, Malike Bennett, said Coit had nothing bad to say about Barrera. "She always said he was a good person," Bennett, 27, told the Daily News. "It's a bad outcome."

The two dated for 10 months and left on good terms as Coit paired up with Barrera, Bennett told the Greenwich newspaper.

"He's actually the reason we stopped dating," Bennett said told the paper. "She wanted to go back with him and I didn't think it was a good idea."

He told the Daily News she moved to New York in 2006 to pursue her goal of working in advertising. "She was really creative," he said. "She was very intelligent."

Barrera worked for several companies, including Coleman Entertainment Group, whose president, B.J. Coleman, told the Daily News: "He wasn't a monster. He was ambitious. This is not someone who goes around hacking people."