Body of 22-year-old Madonna Martin found in car
A South Bronx man is being held without bail after prosecutors charged that he strangled a co-worker and drove her body to a deserted Port Morris intersection before dawn on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.
Richard Bloomfield was charged with second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter Thursday afternoon, Nov. 29, in his bed at Lincoln Hospital. He is expected to enter a plea on Dec. 14.
Police said they discovered Madonna Martin, 22, in the driver seat of a white Honda CR-Z coupe parked at Brook Avenue and Bruckner Boulevard after Bloomfield called 911 to report an assault.
Martin – who was staying in the Bronx because her home in Far Rockaway was destroyed by Superstorm Sandy, according to a co-worker – was pronounced dead at the scene by emergency responders.
Martin was expecting a child with her boyfriend, who was visiting family in Florida when the murder occurred, said the co-worker, Gaby Pascual, who worked at a dialysis center with both the victim and the suspect.
“Madonna was a lovely girl who was studying for her RN license,” said Pascual. “We here at the center are devastated by the loss of her.”
The cause of death was strangulation, according to the medical examiner.
Bloomfield, 40, was arrested shortly after he admitted “I did it” at the scene, according to police. He later confessed that the murder took place several hours earlier at around 4:25 a.m., said police. Police speculated that Bloomfield murdered Martin at his Fox Street apartment nearly two miles away and moved the body to the Bruckner Boulevard location.
Police brought Bloomfield to Lincoln Hospital for an injury to his left wrist that was believed to be self-inflicted.
Bloomfield, a dialysis technician, met Martin at their job in the dialysis center, said Pascual, who declined to identify the center by name. After Sandy destroyed Martin’s home in Far Rockaway, Bloomfield offered her a room to rent in his mother’s house, Pascual said.
Pascual disputed early news reports that identified Martin as Bloomfield’s girlfriend. “I just couldn’t live with the ridiculous notion that they were dating,” she said.
It was the first murder in November for the 40th precinct. There have been 12 murders in the precinct so far this year – a decrease from 18 murders over the same period last year.
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