On the eve of their trial, a married couple from Woodside, Atrtuo Cuevas and Daisy Barrera, pleaded guilty to attempted murder for beating a neighbor in a parking spot dispute in 2023. QNS/file
Jan. 9, 2025 By Bill Parry
A Woodside couple pleaded guilty Tuesday in Queens Supreme Court to attempted murder for an attack on their neighbor that rose to a level of violence rarely seen in the neighborhood that borders Sunnyside.
Arturo Cuevas, 32, and his wife, Daisy Barrera, 28, of 48th St., admitted they battered and stabbed 28-year-old Wilson Chabla Lliguicotta so viciously that video of the bloody assault went viral on social media, which was viewed by more than 20 million people in the days following the brutal assault. The couple had previously fought with the victim over parking in the neighborhood just south of Queens Boulevard at the northwest corner of Calvary Cemetery.
“A 28-year-old man was senselessly stabbed with a knife and beaten with a metal bat by the defendants over a parking dispute,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “Video of the attack, which was captured by a neighbor, shocked the city.”
According to the indictment and investigation, on March 17, 2023, at around 3:40 p.m., Cuevas and Barrera were in front of the Lliguicota’s residence on 47th Avenue, between 48th Street and 49th Street, when the victim pulled up in his car and parked. The couple lived around the block and had a dispute over a parking space with Lliguicota nearly a year earlier.
The couple, who had weapons, approached Lliguicota’s vehicle and attacked him. Cuevas stabbed him in the body with a folding knife, while Barrera used an aluminum baseball bat to strike him in the head repeatedly. After the assailants knocked him to the pavement, the bloody attack continued, with Cuevas stomping on the victim’s prone body several times while his wife swung away, striking the victim several times in his head.
Lliguicota’s girlfriend, 22-year-old Delia Chimbay, saw the grisly scene on the street below from her partner’s apartment window and raced outside to intervene. Barrera smashed her in the arm with the bat and resumed her attack on Lliguicota with her husband. The altercation ended when police from the 108th Precinct in Long Island City arrived at the crime scene and Cuevas and Barrera retreated to their 48th Street apartment, where they were taken into custody following a 20-minute standoff.
EMS arrived at the location and rushed both victims to Elmhurst Hospital. Lliguicota had four stab wounds to his body and one to his face and required emergency surgery for severe brain trauma, removal of part of his skull, and the inducement of a medical coma to manage his extended care and rehabilitation needs.
Cuevas and Barrera pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree murder before Supreme Court Justice Mary L. Bejarano on Tuesday and face 14 years in prison. They were ordered to return to court on Jan. 22 for sentencing.
“On the eve of trial, defendants Arturo Cuevas and Daisy Barrera pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Wilson Chabla Lliguicota,” Katz said. “Our thoughts are with Mr. Lliguicota and his family as he continues to recover from the injuries he sustained.”
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