A Suffolk County jury on March 26, 2026, found 23-year-old Kayla Alvarenga guilty of murder in the first degree and related charges in the 2022 Bay Shore killing of 29-year-old Linver Ortiz Ponce. Prosecutors say what started as a dispute over a parking spot outside Alvarenga’s home ended with Ortiz Ponce fatally shot in a church parking lot. Alvarenga now faces the possibility of life in prison without parole and is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on April 28, 2026.
Jurors convicted Alvarenga of one count of murder in the first degree, one count of kidnapping in the first degree, one count of robbery in the second degree and one count of conspiracy in the fourth degree, according to LongIsland.com. The trial, heard before Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft Jr., followed days of testimony and exhibits. Alvarenga was represented by attorney Jonathan Manley, while Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty and Bureau Chief Timothy Gough handled the prosecution, the outlet reports.
Prosecutors' portrayal of the crime
According to prosecutors, the violence unfolded across the night of Sept. 16 and 17, 2022, after Ortiz Ponce parked near Alvarenga’s house and refused to move his car. They say Alvarenga then phoned friends and told them to “come take care of the victim,” setting in motion the events that led to his death. As outlined by the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office, the group allegedly pulled Ortiz Ponce from his vehicle, beat him, stole his car and drove him to a nearby church parking lot, where surveillance cameras recorded the assault continuing. “The alleged murder in this case occurred with no provocation and for no good reason,” District Attorney Raymond Tierney said in an earlier press release.
Evidence, co-defendants and police work
Prosecutors presented surveillance footage and other evidence that they say shows the abduction at a gas station, the group traveling in two vehicles and the later beating in a church lot, according to reporting by 1010 WINS. Local coverage and police statements place the fatal parking-lot scene at a church on Holbrook Street and identify the victim as 29-year-old Linver Ortiz-Ponce, per TBR News Media. Authorities say Christopher Perdomo, who prosecutors allege was the shooter, was arrested in Georgia after moving there in 2024 and then extradited back to Long Island, and investigators report that the suspects later abandoned the victim’s Camaro and the stolen BMW before returning to Alvarenga’s home.
Sentencing and legal stakes
A conviction for murder in the first degree in New York can carry the harshest penalties allowed under state law, including life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, according to state sentencing statutes described by FindLaw. As reported, Alvarenga is set to be sentenced on April 28, 2026, with her attorney Jonathan Manley expected to appear at that hearing. The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty with Bureau Chief Timothy Gough and was investigated by Detective Luis Cabrera of the Suffolk County Police Department’s Homicide Squad, according to earlier reporting and court records.
With the guilty verdict in place, the case now moves into the sentencing phase, where the judge will consider the statutory options for a class A-I felony and decide the length of Alvarenga’s term. Appeals remain a possibility in the months ahead, and both the district attorney’s office and the defense are expected to present arguments at the April 28 hearing. For the moment, the conviction caps a multi-year investigation into a killing that prosecutors say grew out of a dispute over where a car was parked.
