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
A Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison four years after he strangled a mother of two in her home as her children were inside.
Asun Thomas, 49, was sentenced on Oct. 12 on a first-degree manslaughter charge for killing Luz Miriam Perez, 40, in 2019.
Thomas strangled Perez shortly before 8 a.m. inside her apartment on 187th Street in the Bronx and then fled, leaving her two children — who were 3 and 5 at the time — alone for a day before the mother’s body was discovered, Bronx DA Darcel Clark said in a press release.
The children made themselves peanut butter sandwiches while they were trapped, the Daily News reported at the time.
Perez’s body wasn’t discovered until a passerby saw the children banging on the windows and calling for help.
Thomas surrendered him on Christmas Eve in 2019 to the 48th Precinct.
The boy, now 9, testified against Thomas to help his late mother, who was an acquaintance of Thomas, “get justice.”
Prior to Perez’s death, Thomas had been paroled in 2016 for another manslaughter sentence from 2000. He had served 16 of his 20-year sentence.