Woman was found dead in a blanket. Man pleads guilty 17 years later, NY official says

A passerby found a woman’s body inside a blanket along the shoulder of a highway the same day she was strangled to death in 2005 in New York, officials say. Then, the case went cold for several years.

Now more than 17 years after the murder of 25-year-old Angel Serbay, a man has been “promised” prison time for her death following his arrest in 2017 in Naples, Florida, according to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

Christopher Gonzalez, 41, of Florida pleaded guilty to second-degree murder on Jan. 18, the office announced in a news release. He will be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on Feb. 24, the office said.

Now “Angel Serbay’s family has the closure they deserve,” Westchester County District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah said in a statement.

Gonzalez is accused of fatally strangling Serbay, of Yonkers, and discarding her body inside a blanket near the Sprain Brook Parkway, according to prosecutors. The parkway begins in Yonkers, which is directly north of New York City and connects to the state’s longest highway, the Taconic State Parkway.

Before Gonzalez’s arrest in November 2017, his DNA was linked to an unsolved murder that took place in 2000 in the NYC borough of the Bronx, five years before Serbay was killed, the release said.

As a result, Gonzalez was extradited in 2017 from Naples to New York, according to officials. Since then, he’s been detained by the NYC Department of Corrections, according to the release.

At some point, officials said his DNA was also linked to Serbay’s murder. In early 2018, New York State Crime Stoppers offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to a suspect’s arrest.

This past December, Gonzalez pleaded guilty in connection with the 2000 murder of 19-year-old Dora Almontaser, the Journal News reported.

This story was originally published January 19, 2023 at 2:57 PM with the headline "Woman was found dead in a blanket. Man pleads guilty 17 years later, NY official says."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.