Man convicted of killing mom, boy

A JUDGE SAID Thursday that she couldn't get over how a 35-year-old mother was apparently pricked and tortured multiple times in her neck with a knife before she was strangled to death.

"I hate to use the word, but it was evil, it was evil," Common Pleas Judge Barbara McDermott said shortly after convicting Carlos Rivera, 28, of two counts of first-degree murder, arson and related offenses in the October 2013 deaths of his girlfriend, Atlanta Deveney, and her 12-year-old son, Elijah Rosado.

The judge then sentenced Rivera, of Northeast Philadelphia, to two consecutive terms of life in prison without parole.

Prosecutors had taken the death penalty off the table after Rivera agreed to a nonjury trial.

"Ms. Deveney was petrified when she was dying," the judge said. "I just can't imagine the pain and how scared she was. . . . I go back to Ms. Deveney in her last few seconds and what it must have been like for her."

Evidence showed that in the early morning hours of Oct. 3, 2013, Rivera, who was at Deveney's apartment, on Howell Street near Ditman in Wissinoming, had argued with her about Deveney's not wanting to testify in court that day on his behalf.

Rivera was scheduled to face a trial on aggravated-assault charges in a case in which he was accused of punching Deveney's brother-in-law the previous December. He failed to show up in court for his trial later that day.

Instead, early that morning, about 4 a.m., Rivera flew into a "blind rage," according to a statement he later gave homicide detectives, and began choking Deveney in her bathroom after learning that she would not go to court on his behalf.

After strangling Deveney, Rivera stabbed her son, who was sleeping, with two knives.

Two days later, on Oct. 5, Rivera returned to the apartment and set it on fire.

A paramedic with the Fire Department found the bodies of Deveney and her son in a back-bedroom closet, amid burnt debris.

Photos of the bodies, taken by Crime Scene Unit Police Officer Gary Guaraldo, showed one knife protruding from the boy's neck, and a second knife embedded in his left side, plunged into his rib cage.

Another photo showed Deveney's neck with circular, reddish marks. A medical examiner testified in the trial that the approximately 10 prick marks were consistent with Deveney's having been poked with a knife.

Defense attorney Richard Giuliani, in his closing argument Thursday, contended that statements Rivera gave to homicide detectives admitting to the crimes were not given voluntarily.

He also noted that Rivera had said in one statement that if he hadn't taken PCP or drunk two bottles of brandy, he "would never have did this s---" - referring to killing Deveney and her son.

Assistant District Attorney Gail Fairman said this wasn't a case where Rivera was "so under the influence" that he wasn't fully aware of what he was doing.

"This was not sudden rage," she said, noting that it took time for Rivera to prick Deveney multiple times in the neck and then strangle her.

Then, while Rivera saved Deveney's dog by letting the animal out of the apartment, he intentionally killed her son, she said.

"It's another chance to hurt her [Deveney]," the prosecutor said. "He stabs him and stabs him."

As for Rivera's December 2012 aggravated-assault case, Judge McDermott also ended up presiding over that trial this week. She acquitted him of aggravated assault, but convicted him of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person in that case.

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