Abusive Relationship Trapped Slain Mom

Please don’t go, Less, Sandy Mesquita begged her daughter.

It was Sunday evening. Sandy, a home health care nurse, had just returned home from work. ​“Less,” Sandy’s second-oldest daughter, Alessia Mesquita, had a bag packed for her own 1‑year-old daughter along with her car seat.

“Where are you going?” Sandy asked.

“I’ll be back. I’m going to Target.”

Alessia was waiting for R, her daughter’s father, to pick them up.

Alessia had come with her daughter three days earlier to stay with Sandy at Sandy’s house on Lexington Avenue in Fair Haven Heights. Sandy was always trying to get Alessia to stay away from R. To stay away from the violence. To stay away from a man Sandy felt was destroying her supportive, fun-loving daughter’s life.

“I’m sorry mom,” Alessia had said earlier Sunday, in one of their continual conversations about why she stayed with a man who mistreated her, who Sandy said had once even kidnapped Alessia with her baby after shooting Alessia’s former roommate.

“I know you get upset about it,” Alessia said. ​“I just can’t help it. I feel sorry for him.”

Alessia and her baby went with R. That was the last time Sandy saw Alessia alive.

The next morning, at 9:19 a.m., Sandy and others in Fair Haven Heights saw Alessia’s body lying on the street at Clifton Street and Lenox Street. Less had been shot to death, repeatedly, in the head and torso. She was 28 years old.

6 Days, 2 Domestic Homicides

With the help of neighbors, police later caught up with R. They said he had shot Alessia, then fled in a car with the baby. The baby was with him when police found them on Eastern Street, physically uninjured. R was originally held on $250,000 bond in connection with a first-degree assault charge in connection with the previous shooting of Alessia’s former roommate. On Tuesday he was charged with murder, risk of injury to a minor, and criminal possession of a firearm in conjunction with Alessia’s killing. The court set his bond at $3 million. (Note: The Independent as a rule does not name non-public figure criminal defendants in unadjudicated cases unless we have their side of the story or if there is a pressing public purpose such as addressing a threat to public safety.)

It was the second homicide of a woman in New Haven in less than a week, the ninth homicide already in 2021, a season of unspeakable loss growing out of historic losses from a year-long public-health pandemic.

Covid-19 has for a variety of reasons led to a rise in domestic violence, according to Paola Serrecchia, who works daily with domestic violence victims as site manager for New Haven’s BH Care Hope Family Justice Center. For starters, some services are provided remotely, and victims don’t always connect as easily. Dwaneia Alexandria Turner, who was shot dead March 16 in a same-sex domestic violence-related incident, had been receiving help from the Family Center before her death, according to Serrecchia. ​“She was doing well. We were so proud of her. She had really become a thriver. But due to Covid, it’s a lot harder. We hadn’t been open physically. So she wasn’t coming in.”

Alessia Mesquita, a 28-year-old daughter of the Hill known throughout her life as a caring, giving, upbeat friend, sister, daughter, mother, had not sought help from the Family Justice Center. Her family knew about her situation and tried to arrest a downward spiral that did indeed come to a tragic conclusion.

Alessia’s stepfather, Rico Little, described continual pleas for Alessia to leave R.

“Even up til she passed, we were like, ​‘He’s not the right person for you. We don’t think you should be around him,’” Little recalled Tuesday. Alessia would respond: ​“I know. I just want to help him. Help him get into a program. I wasn’t raised like that, to leave someone who needs help.”

That depiction rang true when Paola Serrecchia heard it Tuesday.

“She’s a caretaker. She wanted to fix it. She felt she knew him the best,” Serrecchia said.

“Sometimes in these abusive relationships, the caretaker is often the victim of domestic violence. The person they’re trying to caretake is their abuser. They know them when they’re gentle and kind to them. They know them when they’re abusive to them. Sometimes they think they can help fix the problem.”

“Something Happened”

Alessia was always known as someone who looked out for other people. She grew up in City Point on Howard Avenue, in the house Sandy’s parents bought after they moved here from Portugal in Sandy’s youth. Sandy then raised her own family in the house. Alessia was the second of eight children.

Griselle McFadden, a close family friend who lived next door and has remained in the family’s life, remembered Alessia in the back yard watching her younger siblings.

“She was protective. She was always like the mom, playing in the back yard,” McFadden recalled. ​“She was a sweet young girl. She was full of life. She was fearless. She had this personality that no matter what came her way, nothing was wrong. She smiled at all things. She was goofy.”

That continued in adulthood. Stepfather Little and mom Sandy spoke of how Alessia helped care for her elderly grandparents so they could remain living at home, how she looked after others when her grandparents died. How she got into church big time in recent years. And especially how she embraced becoming a mom.

“She was just a loving person. She loved her kids. She loved spending time with her kids. She was just someone who loved to help others. She would uplift you if you were having a bad day and encourage you that things get better,” Little said. He could count on texts each morning from Less, reminding him, ​“Pops, I love you. I hope you have a blessed day.”

Alessia split up three years ago with the father of her son Joseph. (They were still in the process of divorcing at the time of her death Monday.) She moved into an apartment with friends in West Haven. She had a good job, as a medical assistant with Endocrine Associates in Branford.

Two years ago she became romantically involved with R. That’s when trouble began, according to mom Sandy.

R had a criminal history: He was sentenced to a year in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to a third-degree assault charge; another six years in 2016 (suspended after 15 months) on a narcotics charge; five years in 2012 (suspended) on another narcotics charge; and 22 months in 2012 after pleading guilty to a felony charge of carrying a pistol without a permit, according to the state judicial database.

Sandy said R and Alessia argued often, and he was verbally abusive to her daughter. She felt her daughter needed to stay away from him, and told her so.

One night, while Alessia was pregnant with the couple’s baby, R and Alessia got in one of those arguments, in the West Haven apartment. A roommate tried to intervene. According to Sandy, R shot the roommate in the arm, then grabbed Alessia. He stole the roommate’s boyfriend’s car and drove away. Police were notified and went looking for the car.

Alessia texted Sandy while in the car.

“Something happened,” Sandy remembered her daughter texting.

“Put your tracker on your phone,” Sandy remembered texting back.

“Please don’t do something crazy. He has a gun on him,” Sandy remembered Alessia texting.

Sandy called in a missing persons report for her daughter.

The police tracked the car to New Haven’s Beaver Hills neighborhood. Sandy went to the scene. Alessia wasn’t there; she had escaped.

Subsequently the first-degree assault warrant was issued for R. But not served.

One Last Escape

But Alessia remained with R. They kept arguing. Sandy and others kept pleading with her to leave him.

Alessia was laid off from her job when Covid shut down the office. When it reopened, she returned to work. But she often missed work because of her problems with R, according to Sandy. He would make her late, or take her car when she needed it. The practice finally had to let her go.

“Alessia was a very nice person who bravely faced a lot of challenges this past year trying to care for her children. We were heartbroken to hear of her passing and horrified at the manner of her death. Our thoughts are with her family during this difficult time,” the practice stated in an email message Tuesday.

New Haven police arrested R in January on a warrant connected to a 2020 domestic-violence case involving a different woman. According to people familiar with the case, the state ended up dropping the charges because of a lack of evidence that could be presented in court, a common challenge.

Meanwhile, Alessia feared for her life, according to Sandy.

Sandy had renewed hope this past Thursday, when Alessia sent her a text. Alessia was staying with R at R’s mother’s home in Wallingford. According to Sandy, the text read: ​“I’m done. I’m ready to go. I can’t take this anymore.”

Sandy went to retrieve her daughter, but R held the door and wouldn’t let her leave, Sandy said.

Soon after, one of R’s sisters brought Alessia to Sandy’s home in Fair Haven Heights.

There Alessia stayed until she decided to go with R to Target on a Sunday night trip.

It’s not unusual for domestic violence victims to return to an abuser, observed Paola Serrecchia.

“Threats become normalized in abusive, unhealthy situations. People do stay,” Serrecchia said Tuesday. ​“The most dangerous time is when they try to leave, as we saw with this incident”.

Alessia told Sandy she’d be back soon when she left Sunday night.

Alessia didn’t come back that night.

Nor did Sandy hear from Alessia. She next saw her shrouded, lying dead in the street Monday morning. Neighbors reported hearing gunshots and watching a man drag Alessia out of the car and fire bullets into her, leave her on the ground, then speed away.

Sandy does believe that her daughter went to Target Sunday night. There were Target bags found at the scene of the murder.