Inset: Kayla Alvarenga (Suffolk County District Attorney's Office). Background: The church where Alvarenga and her henchmen killed a man in Bay Shore, N.Y. (Google Maps).
A New York woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars for orchestrating the murder of a man because he parked his car in front of her house one night and refused to move the vehicle.
Late last month, Kayla Alvarenga, 23, was convicted by a jury of her peers in Suffolk County on one count each of murder in the first degree, kidnapping, robbery, and conspiracy for the September 2022 death of 29-year-old Linver Ortiz Ponce.
This week, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft, Jr.
The underlying incident occurred after Ortiz Ponce parked his red Chevrolet Camaro in front of Alvarenga's residence on Fifth Avenue in Bay Shore, a medium-sized hamlet on Long Island.
The man had, apparently, parked in front of the wrong house.
On Sept. 17, 2022, just before midnight, Alvarenga confronted Ortiz Ponce about his choice of parking spot and demanded he move his car. The man, however, refused to move his car.
So, the defendant called Christopher Perdomo, 28, and three teenagers who were between the ages of 16 and 17 at the time. The woman wanted her friends to teach Ortiz Ponce a lesson.
The woman instructed the quartet to go to her house and remove the victim from the front of her home, according to an account of the facts established during trial provided by the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office in a press release.
"The co-defendants then drove to Alvarenga's house in a BMW that they had stolen just hours earlier, after carjacking a young woman in Bay Shore," the press release reads. "The four dragged the victim from his vehicle while he slept in the car, beat him, and then stole his vehicle."
Ortiz Ponce fled the initial scene of the crime on foot and tried to hide in between vehicles at a nearby gas station.
But the assailants followed.
"Alvarenga then instructed her co-defendants to find, abduct, and kill the victim," according to the district attorney's office.
Alvarenga and some of the pursuers even got into the victim's own car in search of the man who had wanted to park his car on the public street. The remainder of the pursuers got into the stolen BMW. Alvarenga spotted Ortiz Ponce at the gas station and made the call.
"Video surveillance from the gas station captured the victim being abducted at gunpoint while being dragged into the BMW," the press release continues. "Alvarenga then instructed the co-defendants in the BMW to follow her to a church parking lot. On the way to the church, Perdomo beat the victim with a gun."
Later that night, everyone arrived at the House of Prayer Church of God. In the parking lot of the church, the defendants beat the victim, according to the district attorney's office.
Eventually, Alvarenga ordered Perdomo to kill the innocent man. As Ortiz Ponce tried to crawl away, the triggerman shot him repeatedly.
The defendants left the church in both stolen cars. The red Camaro that set off the entire incident was found abandoned in a wooded area of Smithtown, some 15 miles northeast of Bay Shore.
In May 2024, Perdomo was taken into custody in Georgia. In September 2025, he pleaded guilty to one count each of murder, kidnapping, robbery, and criminal possession of a weapon and received a sentence of 20 years to life in prison.
Over the intervening years, each then-juvenile defendant has pleaded guilty and been sentenced, according to law enforcement.
"A man is dead because he parked in front of the wrong house," District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said in a statement. "This defendant orchestrated his kidnapping and murder, directed co-defendants to hunt him down, and used minors to get it done. The jury saw exactly what she did, and now she will spend the rest of her life in prison for it."
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