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The man's brother was also convicted of trying to hide the body.
A history of domestic violence including strangulation and aggravated assault led up to the harrowing moment Gualberto Lebron, now 37, killed Julia Vega, a mom of three, Acting Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II said.
During one incident, Vega escaped the apartment where her children were, and was chased outside by Lebron, where he continued trying to assault her until neighbors intervened. He fled before the police arrived and was a fugitive for several days, police said.
After May 5, 2018, Lebron increased his stalking and threats against Vega, threatening to kill her if she didn’t drop the charges against him, Stephens said. Friends and police encouraged Vega to move into a domestic-violence shelter, but she declined, having recently gotten her own apartment with her children.
On May 9, 2018, while her children were in school, Vega went home on a lunch break from her job at a local daycare center to walk her dogs. Lebron stalked her, broke into her apartment, and killed her, the prosecutor said.
Lebron cleaned the apartment, carried her body out in a rolled-up rug and loaded it into Vega’s minivan. He then drove away with her body. Vega was reported missing that evening, and a missing person’s investigation began.
During the next several days, Lebron kept her body hidden as he scouted places to hide it. He enlisted the help of his brother, Gilberto Lebron, now 38, to destroy her remains and other evidence, and they eventually stored her body inside heavy-duty trash bags filled with chemicals and sealed with duct tape. The bags containing her remains were found behind an abandoned house in Irvington on June 1, 2018.
After a four-week trial, the jury took just over a day of deliberation to find Gualberto Lebron guilty on 21 of 24 counts including Aggravated Murder, Burglary, Aggravated Assault, Aggravated Sexual Assault, Witness Tampering, Desecrating Human Remains, Conspiracy, and three counts of Endangering the Welfare of Children.
The jury also convicted Gilberto Lebron of Desecrating Human Remains and Hindering Prosecution and Conspiracy for helping to destroy Vega’s remains and covering up the crime.
Assistant Prosecutor Adam B. Wells, who tried the case with Assistant Prosecutor Monica Calderon, said what Gualberto Lebron did to Julia Vega and her children was “without exaggeration – monstrous.”
Gualberto Lebron faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the Aggravated Murder conviction. His brother, Gilberto Lebron, faces up to 10 years in prison for his conviction for Desecrating Human Remains. Sentencing is scheduled for April 3, before the Hon. Ronald D. Wigler, J.S.C., who presided over the trial.
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