An upstate New York woman pleaded guilty on Wednesday to the brutal torture and murder of a nonagenarian woman early last year.
Victoria Afet, 23, is on the cusp of turning 24 years old (this Friday) and is now likely to spend at least a significant portion of the rest of her natural life behind bars for killing 93-year-old Concetta “Connie” Tuori via strangulation and stabbing in late February 2021.
Known as the “Skyline Killer” in the Syracuse, N.Y. metropolitan area, Afet killed Tuori and then lived in the deceased woman’s apartment for several weeks in the Skyline building before Tuori’s corpse was eventually discovered–inside the unit–in late March of last year.
The victim’s body was only finally found after she missed a longstanding lunch date with a friend, prompting a search.
Afet was arrested soon thereafter.
In a detailed indictment, Onondaga County grand jurors accused the defendant of an “especially cruel and wanton” murder, intending to “inflict and inflicting torture upon the victim” by “restrict[ing] the breathing of the victim, who was 93 years old, by stuffing items in her mouth and throat and […] stabbing her” over and over.
Local prosecutors said the crime was one of the worst they had ever seen–even for the particularly “notorious” apartment building, known in the area for its squalid nature and unsafe living conditions.
“First of all, the fact that you have a 93-year-old victim and second is what was done to her,” Onondaga County Chief Assistant District Attorney Melinda McGunnigle told local NBC affiliate WSTM at the time the indictment was returned. “This is one of the most brutal cases that I’ve ever seen in my career and that’s why it warranted the murder in the first degree which is really a torture murder.”
Afet, ultimately, pleaded guilty to one count each of murder in the first degree, robbery in the third degree, and assault in the second degree.
The killer in the case had a substantial record.
Onondaga District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick said at a press conference after Afet’s arrest that the defendant had been arrested in “March, April, May, June, July, August, August, August, October of 2020.” She was also arrested roughly a week before the murder for robbing a 74-year-old resident at the same apartment complex.
Tuori’s relatives said justice wasn’t quite a concept worth endorsing here but signaled their satisfaction with the result of the guilty pleas.
“I think any family who went through something like this will tell you there’s no real justice,” Tom Tuori, the deceased’s nephew said after the Wednesday morning hearing, in comments reported by WSTM. “I think we’re going to do everything we can to make sure Ms. Afet stays in custody hopefully to the end of their days.”
After Tuori’s gruesome death, the apartment building was deemed “unfit” to live in by the City of Syracuse. The victim’s family is currently suing the owners of the apartment building, Green National, arguing the murder occurred, in part due to “negligence and carelessness of the Defendant, Green Skyline Apartments, LLC.”
Afet is currently slated to be sentenced in April of this year.
[image via screengrab/WSYR]
