The Rego Park man, found guilty by a jury in the 2019 murder of his pregnant girlfriend, could spend the rest of his life behind bars following his sentencing Thursday, according to Queens DA Melinda Katz.
Anthony Hobson, 51, of 64th Avenue in Rego Park, was sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael B. Aloise to a term of 25 years to life in prison for the February 2019 knife attack on Jennifer Irigoyen inside her Ridgewood apartment building, to run consecutively with the 1 ⅓- to 4-year term on the tampering with physical evidence conviction. Hobson was also found guilty of criminal possession of a weapon following the two-week trial by jury.
According to trial testimony, at around 1 a.m. on Feb. 3, 2019, on the third floor of the residential building on Myrtle Avenue, a neighbor ran into the hallway after hearing the victim scream, “Help! Help! He’s trying to kill the baby!” The neighbor saw Hobson drag the victim into a stairwell, where he repeatedly plunged a steak knife into the body of the 35-year-old real estate agent.
Irigoyen suffered puncture wounds to her neck, chest and abdomen, along with numerous other injuries. Officers from the 104th Precinct and EMS units responded to the scene. Paramedics rushed Irigoyen to Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, where she and her unborn child were later pronounced dead.
Hobson fled the crime scene with the murder weapon, the knife that was never recovered. He made it to Pennsylvania but turned himself in to law enforcement five days after the murder.
“Today’s sentence brings the defendant to justice for a brutal crime,” Katz said. “Inside the stairwell of her apartment building, the victim yelled out that the defendant was trying to kill her unborn child as he stabbed her in the neck, chest and abdomen.”
