What to Know
- Margarita Rivera, 31, was found repeatedly stabbed and bludgeoned, lying in a pool of her own blood, on an NYC street Dec. 1, 2014
- Her ex-boyfriend, 2009 Golden Gloves featherweight champion Trevis Hall, was found unconscious in a dumpster after a suicide attempt
- He was arrested that same afternoon; authorities say he had a receipt for the pipe used in the slaying in his pocket
A former champion pro boxer from Queens has been convicted of murder and other charges in the death of his ex-girlfriend, who was stabbed and bludgeoned to death with a pipe on a city street more than two years ago.
Trevis Hall, a 28-year-old former featherweight boxer known in sports circles as "Black Mama," was taken into custody the same day the woman died. He was found unconscious in a dumpster after a suicide attempt, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said Friday.
"The defendant - a Golden Gloves winner in 2009 - used a knife and a pipe that he’d purchased just 90 minutes earlier to stab and beat the 31-year-old victim to death," Brown said in a statement. "The defendant now faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars."
According to trial testimony, Hall walked up to the victim, Margarita Rivera, on Watson Place in Jamaica the afternoon of Dec. 1, 2014 and stabbed her multiple times in a chest. He also repeatedly beat her in the head with a pipe. Responding officers found Rivera in a pool of her own blood, bleeding profusely from the head.
Officers asked who had hurt her, but she was only able to say "Tre" three times. She later died at a Queens hospital. The knife and pipe were recovered at the scene.
Later that same afternoon, Brown says Hall was found passed out in a dumpster on 127th Street in Richmond Hill. He was taken to the same hospital where Rivera was pronounced dead and arrested shortly thereafter. Police recovered a Home Depot receipt in one of his pockets that had the SKU number for the pipe that was found at the murder scene. Hall was also seen on video surveillance at Home Depot buying the pipe around 1 p.m. the day of the slaying, Brown says.
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Hall faces 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced in September. The Guyanese boxer was also a Golden Gloves semifinalist as a bantamweight in the open class in 2010 and 2011.
