NEW YORK (Reuters) -- A New York chef was sentenced Tuesday to 15 years to life in prison after strangling his wife, sawing off her head and stuffing her body in a suitcase for threatening to leave him.
Police say Oscar Pilamunga, 25, a chef at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, became enraged in May 2003 when his wife, Beatrice Yually, 22, said she was leaving him for another man.
He choked her, cut off her head with a handsaw, put her body in a suitcase and dumped it on a street where it was discovered by startled residents, they said.
Pilamunga told police he tossed the head in a trash bin, but it has yet to be found.
"I killed my wife," Pilamunga told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Carol Berkman during his plea hearing Tuesday.
"How?" the judge asked.
"I tried to strangle her," he replied.
"You did strangle her," the judge corrected him.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/04/13/crime.decapitation.reut/index.html
Police say Oscar Pilamunga, 25, a chef at an Italian restaurant in Manhattan, became enraged in May 2003 when his wife, Beatrice Yually, 22, said she was leaving him for another man.
He choked her, cut off her head with a handsaw, put her body in a suitcase and dumped it on a street where it was discovered by startled residents, they said.
Pilamunga told police he tossed the head in a trash bin, but it has yet to be found.
"I killed my wife," Pilamunga told Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Carol Berkman during his plea hearing Tuesday.
"How?" the judge asked.
"I tried to strangle her," he replied.
"You did strangle her," the judge corrected him.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/LAW/04/13/crime.decapitation.reut/index.html
