Man Pleads Guilty To Killing Girlfriend, Setting Body On Fire

A Bronx man interrupted his murder trial to plead guilty to fatally attacking his ex-girlfriend with a hammer in December 2003 and then driving to his residence with her dead body and the couple’s two-year-old son in the vehicle. He later placed her body in a dumpster and set it on fire at a Queens gas station.
The defendant has been identified as Johnny Media, 29. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, fifth-degree arson and endangering the welfare of a child before Queens Supreme Court Justice Robert J. Hanophy, who indicated that he would sentence the defendant to an indeterminate term of 20 years to life in prison when sentenced on June 21, 2006.
The defendant admitted that on the morning of December 10, 2003, while sitting in his van parked in the vicinity of Elmhurst Avenue and Denman Street in Elmhurst, he and his ex-girlfriend, Edna Figueroa, 33, a medical office receptionist, got into a verbal dispute and that he hit her in the head with a hammer intentionally causing her death. The victim had separated with the defendant two years prior to the incident.
Media then placed the couple’s two-year-old son in the van with Edna Figueroa’s body in the back and drove to his Bronx residence. The defendant later placed her body along with a quantity of gasoline inside a garbage dumpster next to a Getty gas station at 231-06 Northern Boulevard in Douglaston and set it on fire.
He fled the scene and the next morning the owner of the gas station found the victim’s body and called police. Detectives were able to identify the victim through her jewelry and DNA which led to the defendant’s apprehension.