Early Sunday morning, police found a 23-year-old woman who suffered numerous stab wounds—her head was allegedly nearly decapitated—in her Lower East Side apartment at 63 Clinton Street. Police say that Sarah Coit's boyfriend, Raul Barrera, confessed to the brutal crime, and a person who heard Coit's screams told the Post, "My friend who lives here told me this has been going on for a while. They've been fighting like that for months."
Others in the building claimed the screaming and fighting went on for 20 minutes—a 15-year-old neighbor below said, "She was like, 'Stop! Get off of me!' She was yelling and then she just got quiet. That's when I called 911," while another staying next door said people were yelling at Coit, asking her what apartment she was in—and the police told the NY Times that they received four 911 calls on Sunday morning; the Times reported, "Neighbors said they knew little about the couple. It does not appear that the police had ever been called to their apartment before because of domestic violence."
It seems like Barrera reacted badly to Coit breaking up with him: According to the Post, "He turned himself in to cops at the Ninth Precinct station house, but was transferred to the Seventh Precinct, which had jurisdiction. He allegedly told cops that he and Coit had fought about breaking up, and claimed that it was she who had first grabbed the knife before he wrested it away. A police source said Coit had initiated the split." Barrera was also reportedly covered in Coit's blood.
Coit, who grew up in Greenwich, CT, had been studying marketing and advertising at Hunter College until a year ago. Before moving to the LES, she lived on the Upper East Side, and her old super said, "She was a nice kid. It's a shame what happened. It's sad. She had a future ahead of her." Barrera, a PR professional, is to be arraigned today.
