A Brooklyn woman who told cops she stabbed her boyfriend to death because he wouldn’t stop beating her made another startling admission during the same interview.
“I don’t want him in jail. I love him. I’m always going to take him back,” Jennifer Ayala told police after she stabbed Pedersin Pelissier to death in her Flatbush home, law enforcement sources told the News.
The seemingly contradictory statements highlight an ongoing challenge domestic violence advocates and prosecutors often face as they tackle abuse cases. Pelissier had a lengthy criminal history of domestic violence, with Ayala the target of his abuse.
“Sometimes those complainants or victims are just very dependent upon their abusers,” said attorney Matthew Galluzzo, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney who prosecuted scores of domestic violence cases.
“Maybe it’s financial, maybe it’s emotional or psychological. Maybe they have kids, and they’re concerned about what would happen to her and the children if the abuser is no longer providing for them.”
In her interview with police after the Sept. 19 killing, Ayala, 36, told cops she stabbed Pelissier to death with a kitchen knife because she’d had enough of his abuse. Ayala is facing manslaughter charges, accused of stabbing Pelissier twice in the chest inside her home on Linden Blvd. near New York Ave. in Flatbush at about 6:50 a.m.
“He’s been hitting me. He’s done it for three years,” she said. “So then I said, ‘F— it. The police won’t help me, nobody will help me, I’m going to f—ing kill you.’”
GoFundMe
Stabbing victim Pedersin Pelissier. (GoFundMe)
Pelissier, who is also 36, has been arrested for six domestic violence incidents in which Ayala was the victim since May 2025, law enforcement sources said.
Four of those cases have been sealed. The other two — one where he was accused of punching her in the forehead, the other where he was charged with violating an order of protection by showing up at her door, slapping her, kicking her while she was down and spitting at the arresting officer — were dismissed after she refused to go forward, sources said.
Galluzzo says many women in Ayala’s position are trapped in a cycle of dependence that abuse victims have a hard time breaking away from.
“It’s usually a witness or a victim who just refuses to cooperate,” Galluzzo said. “If you go into the courtroom where the domestic violence cases are heard every day. You’ll just see a dozen getting dismissed.”
“At some point, it has to get better or it gets worse,” he said. “So you try to steer (the victims) to counselors or to shelters or just any other kind of programming that you hope will make them feel safe being separated from this person, because that’s actually the problem. Is they know they’re not safe with the abuser, but they’re thinking they’re going to be less safe without him sometimes. So you’re trying to dispel that incorrect idea.”
In the last three months of 2025, the city’s five district attorneys declined to prosecute 938 cases because victims failed to cooperate, the Daily News reported.
Ayala was arraigned late Sunday in Brooklyn Criminal Court on manslaughter and weapon possession charges, and was released on bail Tuesday.
Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News
A man was stabbed to death inside an apartment building on Linden Blvd. near New York Ave. in Brooklyn on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Her younger brother, who didn’t give his name, said her mental health issues likely factored into the alleged killing.
“I hope that they can see that she honestly needs help. She doesn’t need jail time. She needs rehab. She needs to be rehabilitated,” he said. “My sister has been diagnosed with bipolar and manic depression. She really just needs help. She needs to be around the right people.”
He added, “When you deal with mental health and people are provoking you and provoking you and you have nobody to turn to, sometimes it does end up violent.”
Several neighbors in her Flatbush apartment building said they could constantly hear Ayala and Pelissier fighting.
“When I heard the noise coming from that apartment, the abuse was so loud I thought I was the one who was crazy,” said one neighbor. “I’ve lived in New York my whole life. Never hear anything like it.”
“I would like to think there’s always an alternative to murder,” Galluzzo said. “It sounds like it was a dangerous situation and I don’t discount that she was probably abused. I think it does show that she’s been psychologically injured, such that the alternative of going to the police was apparently not an option.”
“It’s too bad she felt that way,” he said.