A Glen Cove man pleaded guilty to murdering his estranged mother-in-law after she left her daughter’s birthday celebration at a West Hempstead restaurant in September 2024.
On September 28, 2024, the victims, 51-year-old Ana Espinoza, her husband, and other family members were celebrating Espinoza’s adult daughter’s birthday at the La Candela II restaurant in West Hempstead. Erick Corado Gonzalez, Espinoza’s daughter’s estranged husband, was not invited to the celebration.
Just after midnight on September 29, 2024, the partygoers were leaving the restaurant and heading for their vehicles. Gonzalez then approached Espinoza in the parking lot and stabbed her seven times in the torso. When her husband tried to intervene, the defendant stabbed him in the hand.
Espinoza’s adult son also tried to help his mother. Gonzalez pointed an imitation pistol at the man and threatened him not to follow him. The defendant then fled the scene.
The attack took place in the presence of the defendant’s two-year-old son.
Espinoza and her husband were both taken to Winthrop Hospital for treatment. Espinoza suffered hemorrhagic shock from being stabbed in the neck and was pronounced dead at 3:58 a.m.
Gonzalez fled the state after the stabbing and was arrested on September 29, 2024, in Linden, New Jersey by local authorities. He was extradited to Nassau County on October 22, 2024.
A knife was recovered from the restaurant’s parking lot, and an imitation pistol was recovered from the defendant’s car trunk.
Gonzalez, 29, pleaded guilty on September 3, 2026, before Judge Caryn Fink to charges of Murder in the Second Degree (a Class A-I felony) and Attempted Murder in the Second Degree (a Class B violent felony).
“A family celebration turned tragic when this defendant ambushed his mother-in-law in a restaurant parking lot, put her in a headlock, and savagely stabbed her repeatedly in her neck and body, while the defendant’s two-year-old son watched,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. “Ana died a few hours later from her extensive injuries and blood loss. Gonzalez’s rage and unrepressed violence tore apart this family, robbing them of a mother and grandmother still very much in the prime of her life. Because of his ruthlessness, Gonzalez now forfeits his freedom and the chance to be a father to his young son.”
Gonzalez is due back in court on October 15, 2026, and is expected to be sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. NCDA recommended a sentence of 30 years to life in prison.