A missing Queens mother whose body was found buried in a shallow grave in Rockaway Community Park had been shot multiple times, police and law-enforcement sources said on Monday, October 26, according to reporting carried by Internewscast. The city medical examiner determined that Seraphina Pereira, 35, had suffered gunshot wounds to her head, neck and torso, and ruled her death a homicide.

Source: Internewscast, citing NYPD and law-enforcement sources

Pereira was last seen at about 11 a.m. on Monday, October 19, as she left her home on Beach 54th Street, about half a mile from the park in Edgemere, Queens. Officers found her body at about 9:45 p.m. on Saturday, wrapped in a blanket and buried in a shallow hole, and her remains were already decomposing, the sources said.

Source: Internewscast, citing NYPD and law-enforcement sources

Front Page Detectives, citing the New York Post, reported that officers from the 100th Precinct responded to a 911 call at about 9:42 p.m. on Saturday near Beach 58th Street and Almeda Avenue, close to a cricket field in the 253-acre park, where they found a woman in her 30s in a shallow grave who was pronounced dead at the scene. Her identity had not been determined at that stage.

Source: Front Page Detectives, citing the New York Post

Investigators believe Pereira may have known her killer, police sources told Internewscast — a line of inquiry, not a finding, and police have not named any suspect. No arrests had been made by Monday as detectives continued investigating the homicide.

Source: Internewscast, citing law-enforcement sources

What is solid

  • Pereira, 35, was last seen leaving her Beach 54th Street home on October 19
  • Her body was found Saturday night in Rockaway Community Park, wrapped in a blanket in a shallow grave
  • The medical examiner found gunshot wounds to the head, neck and torso and ruled the death a homicide
  • No arrests had been made by Monday

What is only claimed

  • Whether Pereira knew her killer — investigators believe she may have, according to police sources; no suspect has been named and that belief is not a proven finding