An illegal alien has admitted stabbing a woman to death in a Walmart parking lot in Albion, N.Y., police say, the second murder by an illegal this year in the small community about 30 miles northwest of the city of Rochester, near Lake Ontario. (Downtown Albion pictured at left.) Authorities have charged Luis A. Rodriguez-Flamenco, 24, with the stabbing murder of Kathleen I. Byham, 45. She was leaving the store on October 30, the Batavia News reported, when Flamenco attacked her as two illegal aliens from Mexico watched. The other two have not been charged, but police turned them over to federal immigration authorities.
Although investigators first believed it was yet another “random act of violence,” the newspaper reported, the suspect put that idea to rest in his admission to police. His aim was to steal the woman’s car.
The Stabbing
Though the illegal alien pleaded not guilty, he confessed to investigators that he did, indeed, stab Bynham, who had recently earned her doctorate, the newspaper reported. An investigator told the newspaper that “she suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso.”
Rodriguez-Flamenco stabbed Bynham with a small kitchen knife.
Orleans County Undersheriff Steve Smith told the paper that Rodrigeuz-Flamenco didn’t know why he killed the woman. “He said that he didn’t know why he did it,” Smith told the newspaper:
His intention was to carjack her. That was the ultimate goal. What prompted him to assault her, he claims that he did not know why he did what he did.
Another investigator also told the newspaper the suspect was mystified. “We asked him if he was angry at her for some reason, or whether he was angry at someone else,” Investigator Corey Black told the News. “He said ‘No.’ He could not offer an explanation for why he stabbed her.”
But admit the crime he did, the newspaper reported, quoting Rodriguez-Flamenco’s statement to police:
"I ran up to her and I snatched her car keys and I started stabbing her with a small bladed kitchen knife that I had taken with me from my house,” he told investigators. “I had the knife in my pants and I pulled it out and started to stab her.
"I don’t know why I did it but I took her keys and ran across the street into the field. I threw the knife and the keys down somewhere in the field and I ran through the field and then to the railroad tracks.”
After Rodriguez-Flamenco admitted his guilt, police charged him with second-degree murder.
The newspaper also reported that the one of the other illegals, held with the third at the federal detention center in Batavia, talked with police. He, too, seemed confused about why the trio went to the parking lot.
“I was at a house drinking and dancing with friends,” 21-year-old Marco Gomez-Perez told police in a statement, the newspaper reported:
After a while, one of my friends, by the name of Kalimba [Rodriguez-Flamenco] asked me to accompany him to Wal-Mart to buy shoes. We then walked to Wal-Mart.
On the walk to Wal-Mart Kalimba spoke about wanting to go to Georgia to look for work. As we arrived to the Wal-Mart parking lot, I saw a woman walking towards her vehicle. Kalimba walked up to the woman and began to stab her. I was about 20 feet behind him. I was shocked and ran away. I did not expect him to stab her.
Rodriguez-Flamenco told investigators that another of the thugs, Cholo, “was was saying something about having problems with some guy who pulled out a knife on him,” the newspaper reported, quoting his statement to police.
“Cholo was saying something about having problems with some guy who pulled out a knife on him,” he said. “We were supposed to go and scare the guy or something so we walked to Wal-Mart to get an air cartridge for the air pistol and when we were walking up there and we were talking about wanting to get out of here, but I don’t remember if we were talking about stealing a car or not.”
Rodriguez-Flamenco said the three were near the front of the parking lot when he saw a woman, Byham, walking away from the store and into the parking lot.
That’s when the Honduran illegal rushed the woman and brutally stabbed her to death.
Police may well charge the Mexican illegals, the newspaper reported.
Second Killing This Year
In February, Albion was the scene of another brutal murder. And again, an illegal alien confessed to the crime.
Carlos Cardenas, 21, admitted strangling his 15-year-old sister-in-law, Katherine Sanchez, the Batavia News reported, because she threatened to tell relatives the two had sex.
In an 11-page statement to police, Cardenas claimed the murder was an accident, though he admitted putting his arm around her neck and that the poor girl “struggled until she lost consciousness and fell to the floor,” the newspaper reported.
“Once Katy didn’t wake up I dragged her into the basement,” Cardenas wrote. “When we arrived in the basement I dragged her part way in. I then pressed on her chest and she didn’t react. I then dragged her to the back far room area of the basement.”
His case, the News reported, is pending.
