Police have arrested a LES man who allegedly confessed to stabbing his girlfriend to death this morning. Raul Barrera was charged with the murder of Sarah Coit early this morning in their apartment at 63 Clinton Street. Coit was allegedly trying to break up with him at the time. And neighbors say they could hear Coit screaming for help. "She was yelling ‘No, no, stop, stop, don’t hurt me!’...The cops were yelling, ‘Don’t look, don’t look!’ Her head was almost off, her neck was wide open," said Brianna Andalore, who was staying with a friend in the building.
Several neighbors confirm this account of the sounds coming from the couples apartment around 2:30 a.m. this morning. "I was sleeping in the back bedroom and I heard a lady screaming. I heard her yelling ‘Help me, Help me!’ It went on for quite awhile, at least 20 minutes. She sounded like she was in distress. People from the building were yelling out ‘Where are you? What apartment?'" said Joost Bohner. "I heard her arguing with her boyfriend, it got very loud, she was yelling ‘Stop, get off me!’ Then she got real silent and I heard nothing else," said 15-year-old Jason Figueroa, who lives in the apartment above.
Police arrived to find Coit in a pool of blood. Barrera left the scene, but turned himself into police later this morning. Neighbors added that the couple has lived in the third floor apartment for about two years, and had argued many times before: "My friend who lives her told me this has been going on for awhile, they’ve been fighting like that for months. We were watching from our front window, when she was brought out," said Andalore.
