A squatter convicted of killing a tenant in her own Manhattan apartment and stuffing her body in a duffle bag was sentenced to 20 years to life on Tuesday.
Halley Tejada was in a Manhattan courtroom Tuesday after pleading guilty in December to second-degree murder in the brutal death of Nadia Vitels, 52, who was beaten to death, stuffed into a duffle bag shoved into a closet of her new Kips Bay apartment in March 2024.
Vitels’ son, Misha Vitels, and two friends discovered the the body.
“It was just us against the world,” the son said in court before the sentencing. “We were a small, tight-knit family, and she was everything to me.”
Obtained by Daily News
Murder victim Nadia Vitels.
Misha said he was at work that day when he got a text from a worried family friend asking if he had heard from his mother.
“My mom always answered the phone,” he said. “Especially from her friends. She always responded to me immediately. I knew right then something was really wrong.”
Misha said he frantically started calling around to friends and family, none of whom had heard from her in days.
He said he raced to her home and begged a superintendent to let him into the locked apartment. But because he felt anxious, he waited for someone to go in with him.
“Inside, everything felt wrong,” he said. “Clothes were scattered on the floor by the front closet. In the living room, Mama’s dog was alone, the floor covered in crusted pee. To the right, near the bedroom entrance, there was a massive crack and hole in the wall. Noluggage, no computer, none of the things she’d just moved in with. My mind spun: Had she run away? Had she hurt herself? Did she kill herself? I searched the bedroom carefully, but I was shaking all over, I was terrified I’d find her body.”
Misha, who was 23 at the time, said his friend Adam sent him and his friend Vera outside while he looked around some more. A short time later, Misha said, Adam came outside with the bad news.
Misha’s mother’s body was hidden under some clothes in a front closet, stuffed inside a duffle bag.
“The waiting, the searching, the moment I realized the truth, broke me and I’ll never fully heal,” Misha told the court. “It wasn’t just losing her. It was how she was taken, those hours, and the image of her walking into her apartment and never leaving, just stuffed in a bag. My rock, my everything, my mom, reduced to this.”
Prosecutors said the apartment had been vacant after Vitels’ mother died months earlier. Tejada and a co-defendant, Kensly Alston, were squatting in the apartment, and surprised Vitels when she returned.
Tejada and Alston were seen on video stealing Vitels’ Lexus that was parked in front of the building. The car was later involved in a crash in Pennsylvania.
“Nadia Vitels was about to start a new chapter of her life when Halley Tejada brutally murdered her in the very apartment she was moving into,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement.
”Halley Tejada has been sentenced to 20-years-to-life in state prison for his abhorrent and fatal conduct. My thoughts are with Ms. Vitels’ loved ones who continue to mourn her painful loss. I know this sentence will not bring her back, but I hope it can serve as a measure of comfort.”
Misha said every day is a struggle without his mother.
“How does a 23-year-old son go days without hearing from his mom, rush to check on her, discover her body stuffed tied up in a bag — and know the person responsible could one day be back on the streets, riding the subway, while she never gets another day?” Misha said.
“But people told me early on, and it’s proven true: The only reason I get through every single day is because of my mom’s lessons and the strength she poured into me for 23 years. She showed me what waking up, persevering and fighting through hardship looks like.”