Thursday, October 1, 2026
A Valley Stream man has been indicted on charges he fatally stabbed his uncle’s girlfriend and a co-worker in separate attacks hours apart.
Rony Yahir Alvarenga-Rivera, 22, was arraigned on June 2 before Judge Robert A. Schwartz on charges of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.
Alvarenga-Rivera pleaded not guilty and was remanded. He is scheduled to return to court July 8. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
“Rony Yahir Alvarenga-Rivera’s anger over petty disagreements boiled over into the alleged murders of two innocent women,” Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly said in a news release.
“The defendant allegedly stabbed Eddy Raquel Hernandez Castillo to death because he could not stand the sound of her footsteps above his apartment as she walked around in the comfort of her own home,” Donnelly added. “Then, having allegedly committed one murder, he sought out a coworker, Ana Maria Del Aguila-Cordova, waiting at the Wendy’s where they worked together until she took out the trash and he could strike. The defendant allegedly stabbed and killed the mother of two all because they did not get along at work. The sheer brutality of these deranged and unprovoked attacks has shattered two families. Our thoughts are with them as we prosecute this case.”
According to prosecutors, Nassau County police responded to a 911 call at about 12:27 a.m. May 1 reporting a stabbing at a Wendy’s restaurant on Austin Boulevard in Island Park.
Officers found Ana Maria Del Aguila-Cordova, 42, near dumpsters behind the restaurant with more than 30 stab wounds. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
About 2:52 a.m. that same day, police responded to a 911 call from an employee at a 7-Eleven convenience store in Lynbrook.
Investigators found Alvarenga-Rivera at the store with cuts on his hands and blood on his clothing. Information gathered at the scene led police to a possible second victim at the defendant’s residence on West Mineola Avenue in Valley Stream.
There, officers found 32-year-old Eddy Raquel Hernandez Castillo near a side entrance of the home with more than 50 stab wounds. She also was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alvarenga-Rivera knew both victims, authorities said.
Hernandez Castillo was the girlfriend of the defendant’s uncle and had lived with him in an apartment above the defendant’s basement residence for about six months, prosecutors said.
Investigators allege that at about 9 p.m. April 30, Alvarenga-Rivera became upset by the sound of Hernandez Castillo walking upstairs in high heels. He allegedly confronted her and stabbed her more than 50 times.
Prosecutors said he then boarded a Long Island Rail Road train to Island Park, where he and Del Aguila-Cordova worked at Wendy’s. Investigators said the two had a history of workplace disputes.
When Alvarenga-Rivera arrived and found the restaurant locked, he allegedly waited near the dumpsters for Del Aguila-Cordova to take out the trash.
At about midnight May 1, roughly three hours after the first attack, he allegedly attacked and killed her behind the restaurant, prosecutors said.
Police recovered the knives allegedly used in the attacks, as well as two cell phones, at the Wendy’s location.
The county’s police department’s Homicide Squad arrested Alvarenga-Rivera May 1.
