Abusive Boyfriend Kidnapped Ex, Bound, Stuffed Her In Suitcase Before Leaving Victim For Dead

A brutal Queens man is set to serve a 30-year jail term following his sentencing on Thursday after he was found guilty of shoving his savagely beaten ex-flame in a red suitcase before dumping the still-breathing woman on a Connecticut roadside in 2019.

Last year, Javier Da Silva Rojas, 25, pleaded guilty in White Plains federal court to one count of kidnapping for the horrific death of his former partner, Valerie Reyes, 24, who was at the prime of her life when the man decided to heinously abduct her, according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss.

Months after Rojas and Reyes had split, the man reportedly drove to the victim's New Rochelle home on Jan. 28, 2019, and barged into her apartment uninvited, the New York Post reported. The man had switched his phone to airplane mode before confronting Reyes, the court heard.

The two got into a vicious row, which left Reyes with head trauma, bruising around the face, and a large hematoma to her forehead, prosecutors said.

The now-convicted criminal kidnapped Reyes, who was still alive at that time, and covered her mouth with several layers of packing tape, News 12 noted.

He would also tie her feet and hands with twine before putting her in a suitcase as if he was ready to dump a corpse.

Rojas, a dual citizen of Venezuela and Portugal, later abandoned the luggage in bushland on the side of a road in Greenwich. The victim's family reported her missing two days later.

Eight days after the Jan. 29, 2019, kidnapping, Rojas, who was in the country illegally, used Reyes' ATM card to withdraw approximately $5,350 and swap her stolen iPad for an Apple monitor and a laptop.

When pressed by the media to comment on his sentencing, Rojas said that he panicked after Reyes lost consciousness, noting he was unable to revive her.

Despite efforts to tamper with evidence of his conduct to avoid detection, the man was arrested shortly after his final and fatal encounter with Reyes. He initially told police that the woman, whose corpse was found one week after she was left for dead in 2019, fell off the bed and cracked her head open during rough sex.

Prosecutors would slam his alibi, citing the Connecticut Medical Examiner’s Office's conclusion that the woman died of homicidal asphyxiation, meaning Reyes suffocated inside the “suitcase that became her coffin," according to the New York Daily News.