50 YEARS TO LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR BRONX MAN CONVICTED OF
MURDER AND ATTEMPTED MURDER ON CHRISTMAS DAY 2005 SIX MONTHS
AFTER A PAROLE BOARD RELEASED HIM FROM PRISON

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a convicted rapist was sentenced to 50 years to life imprisonment for stabbing a 22-year-old woman to death and seriously injuring her father on Christmas Day 2005.

Sheldon Becker, 46, pled guilty on September 17, 2007 to one count of Murder in the 2nd degree in the death of Demaris Lopez, and one count of Attempted Murder in the 2nd degree in the wounding of Hector Lopez. State Supreme Court Justice Megan Tallmer sentenced Becker to consecutive terms of 25 years to life imprisonment for the murder and 25 years imprisonment for the attempted murder. Becker will have to serve at least 50 years before he becomes eligible for parole.

The bloody crimes occurred on Christmas Day 2005 in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx at the victims’ home near the Cross Bronx Expressway. Becker, who was a long time friend of the elder Lopez, was renting a room in the house following his parole from prison in June 2005. He had served nearly 13 years for a rape conviction in New York. Becker stabbed both victims multiple times with a kitchen knife. The deceased woman’s 7-year-old brother was playing with a Christmas present when he heard Becker struggling with his sister in her bedroom. The young boy ran to his father’s bedroom upstairs to get help. The elder Lopez broke through his daughter’s locked bedroom door and was stabbed in the chest and torso when he attempted to aid the young woman who was partially undressed.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Adam Oustatcher of the Major Case / Gang Prosecutions Bureau and Mariam Sanni of the Child Abuse Sex Offense Bureau.