On Palm Sunday, April 15, 1984, ten people were killed inside an East New York apartment at 1080 Liberty Avenue in an attack later called the Palm Sunday Massacre. Among the dead was 20-year-old Carmen Perez, her two young sons Alberto and Noel Maldonado, and her sister Migdalia Perez. Eight of the victims were children; an infant daughter of Carmen’s survived, found crawling among the deceased.

Victims had been shot at close range, most in the head. Nineteen bullets were fired from two different handguns. There were no signs of robbery or drug-dealing at the scene, and the victims appeared to have been caught by surprise.

Police identified Christopher Thomas, a man known to the family, as a suspect. Investigators tied the motive to jealousy: Thomas reportedly believed the apartment owner, Enrique Bermudez, was having an affair with his estranged wife and had visited the apartment that day asking for drugs and money. Thomas was tried in 1985; the jury convicted him of ten counts of manslaughter and he received a sentence capped at 50 years.