The cousin of a young Ecuadorian immigrant stabbed to death by a trio of strangers on a Queens street can’t shake her memories of the victim’s bloody desperate final moments.
Henry Marcelo Celleri, 21, was attacked about 11:05 p,m. Oct. 6 just down the block from his family’s home in Corona, authorities say. The 16-year-old accused killer and two accomplices chased him before they knocked him to the ground, punched and kicked him and drove a knife into his chest, police said. His family says he was robbed of his belongings.
Celleri, whose family refers to him by his middle name, managed to stumble home while bleeding profusely before he collapsed.
Celleri’s cousin Kaly Ortiz, a freshman at Queens College, remembers getting a panicked phone call that night from her mother.
“My mom, she couldn’t even breathe. ‘Kaly, please hurry because they stabbed Marcelo and he’s going to die.’ I ran for my life,” said Ortiz, 18. “I entered through the back entrance and I see Marcelo there laying. He had knocked on the door and my uncle opened the door. He said, ‘Help me, I just got in a fight.’ My uncle saw his hands and saw they were covered in blood.”
“I just saw him there suffocating. I remember going over him and saying ‘Marcelo, please open your eyes! Please don’t die!’” she added.
“(He) eventually stopped breathing while I was holding his head. The ambulance came and they took him to the hospital. They told us to say our last goodbye. Everybody had said their goodbye and then it was my turn. I grabbed his hand.”
Over a month later, Ortiz remains haunted by that day.
“I relive what I saw,” she said. “I think more of that than of the good memories together.”
Ortiz described Celleri, who she called her best friend, as generous and kind with a distinctive laugh, a love of salsa music and a busy social life.
Born in Cañar, Ecuador, Celleri grew up there and in Spain before arriving in New York in the summer of 2022 and starting to work in construction.
“We picked him up from JFK,” recalled Ortiz. “He had the biggest smile on his face. He looked like he was just happy to be here.”
“He would go out a lot,” she added. “He’d go out with his friends. He’d play [soccer] in the Flushing Park. Many of his childhood friends moved here and they reunited.”
Celleri’s mother, back in Ecuador, remained hopeful when she first got the news he’d been stabbed.
“She was obviously crying but it didn’t hit her because her son was still technically alive. He was brain dead and was only alive because of the ventilator,” said Ortiz. “‘My son is a champion … My son is strong and I know he’s going to come out of this one.’ I couldn’t stop sobbing.”
Celleri hung on for several hours before succumbing to his injuries at Elmhurst Hospital.
“We were all sitting in the room silently and my cousin came into the room and whispered ‘He passed’ and we all started yelling. So then had to call his mom after and that’s what stuck with me the most. I never want to know what that feels like. She started yelling, ‘Why? Why? My son, Marcelo. My boy. I want my son. Give me my son back. There’s no way he is dead. Promise me, swear to me that he’s dead. Don’t lie to me.’”
After detectives reviewed surveillance footage from the scene, two suspects were charged with the murder. Brayan Carchi Dutan, 20, was arrested November 2 followed by Leonardo Velepucha, 16, four days later. Criminal complaints for both Carchi Dutan and Velepucha indicate a third person was also involved but has not been caught
Prosecutors say Velepucha, who is being tried as an adult, swung a knife at the victim and his two accomplices joined him in punching and kicking Celleri.
Velepucha’s lawyer, Nicholas Ramcharitar, expressed his condolences to the victim’s family in a statement to the Daily News but claimed the teen was acting in self defense after Celleri drunkenly tried to steal the accused killer’s Bluetooth speaker.
Both suspects are being held without bail on charges of murder, gang assault and weapon possession.
“We stand firm in Mr. Velepuchas account of the events that took place,” Ramcharitar told the Daily News. “We are firmly vested in the notion that Mr. Velepucha was defending himself from a drunk and belligerent individual who attempted to assault and steal the young man’s speaker. The events that transpired thereafter were in a qualified self defense situation.”
Celleri’s family isn’t buying that account.
“I hope they rot in jail and for eternity. No matter how long they serve, that will not bring back my youngest son,” the victim’s mother, Gloria Silva, told the Daily News from Ecuador.
“I hope there is justice made for my son who that night had the intention to just come home to his family and wake up the next day to go to work. Not only did he kill Marcelo that night but he also killed us.”
Anna Gratzer, Ellen Moynihan
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