Woman stabs boyfriend to death after fight —Claims years of abuse

A 31-year-old woman stabbed her longtime boyfriend to death early Saturday after years of abuse, officials and stunned family members said.

Christina Quinones slammed a knife into the chest of Ruben Jimenez, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, during a fight in her apartment at the Todt Hill Houses on Westwood Ave. in Castleton Corners, Staten Island.

Paramedics rushed Jimenez, also 31, to Staten Island University Hospital North after the 12:45 a.m. clash, but doctors were unable to save him.

Quinones’ three children — a 14-year-old boy, a 10-year-old girl and a 4-year-old girl — were in the apartment during the stabbing, cops said. Jimenez was the father of two of the children, officials said.

The couple was arguing over a phone call from a woman Jimenez had received Friday night, law enforcement sources said. After a few moments, the fight became physical.

“I don’t know what happened, but something had to happen to her for this to happen,” resident Melissa Ortiz, 26, said.

Quinones told police they were arguing over the Friday night phone call from another woman when Jimenez tried to choke her. She pulled a knife and stabbed him in self defense, she said.

Quinones was charged with murder, assault and criminal possession of a weapon, officials said. Her arraignment was pending Saturday night.

This is Quinones’ first arrest. Jimenez had been arrested 14 times before — twice for brutalizing the mother of his children.

In February 2013, he confronted Quinones in front of their children’s school, police said. After cursing and spitting at her, he picked up a bottle and threatened to hit her with it. Cops charged him with menacing. A year and a half later — on Oct. 24, 2014 — he strangled Quinones during a fight inside her Staten Island home, police said.

A woman who said she was Jimenez’s sister defended him. “That’s my brother!! It took two to destroy something great!!” posted Melly Jimenez Esquilin on Facebook. 

An order barring Jimenez from seeing Quinones had been filed, but it was not clear if the order was still in effect Saturday, officials said.

Quinones’ family said Jimenez had brutalized the young mom for years.

“She was a single mother ... a very good mother, but she was in an abusive relationship,” relative Sylvia Quinones, 27, said Saturday.

Residents of the Westwood Ave. apartment building often heard the couple arguing.

On the Saturday before Christmas, Quinones was heard screaming at Jimenez, according to one neighbor.

“Everybody knows you’re a liar!” she screamed at the time. “You lied to me! You lied to me!”

A few moments later, Jimenez grabbed Quinones, and pulled her outside the building, the neighbor recalled.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Quinones screamed.

The two were also seen fighting between two parked cars in the building’s parking lot. Friends knew that the couple was having problems but Jimenez and Quinones were “trying to get past them.”

Quinones moved into the Todt Hill Houses with her children in 2013. Jimenez lived in Manhattan in the Smith Houses — where the two met — and routinely visited, neighbors said.