Three-Time Ex-Con Shot Ex To Death While Violating Victim's Protection Order

A three-time ex-convict allegedly shot his ex-girlfriend to death at the entrance hall of a Brooklyn apartment building at around 1:15 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 22.

Israel Elves, 56, has been arrested Tuesday, Aug. 23, and charged with the murder of Hope Staton Pearson, 42, after the victim was shot multiple times in the lobby of the East Flatbush apartment building on Rockaway Parkway near Winthrop Street, reported the New York Post.

According to the police, Elves, who was released on parole in March after serving nearly five years in prison for burglary, had been the subject of several domestic violence complaints filed by Pearson, including one shortly after he was released from jail where she said he choked her.

On July 25, before her death, Pearson accused Elves of pulling a knife on her in his apartment, reported the New York Daily News.

According to the complaint, Elves and Pearson quarreled because Pearson wouldn’t share her drugs. When Elves came at her with a knife, a roommate interceded, pushing her to call the cops.

Police picked the suspect up on July 30, charging him with menacing, harassment, and criminal possession of a weapon, all misdemeanors. He was subsequently released without bail in August.

Elves told the police on Wednesday that he shot his ex-partner because she had threatened to have him jailed for violating her order of protection against him.

“I met her on the street,” Elves admitted to the police, according to prosecuting attorneys. “I knew she was trouble. I should have listened to my daughter. I dated her only about a month.”

According to the criminal complaint, Elves purportedly shot Pearson six times in the lobby of the apartment building on Monday.

Judge Simiyon Haniff has ordered Elves held without bail on Wednesday. Because the killing was meant to silence the victim’s testimony against him, Elves has been charged with first-degree murder and faces the prospect of life in prison.

Pearson’s aunt Sharron Staton, 82, told the Daily News that her anxious niece was an ethical individual at heart and did not deserve such a tragic end.

Earlier this year, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a spending bill that augmented funds for domestic violence victims, housing, and legal support. In June, he signed gun reform legislation that seeks to do more to keep guns out of the hands of people convicted of domestic violence, Reuters reported.