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Alberto Plasencia, 26, of 611 Bronx River Road, was in City Court on Wednesday where he was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Marie McSweeney. The charge comes a day after Plasencia was arrested by detectives of the Yonkers Cold Case Squad.
Prosecutors say that on April 24, 2004, between 4:15 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., McSweeney, 48, was driving along the Sprain Brook Parkway, near the Kimball Avenue bridge, when a large piece of asphalt was tossed from the overpass and crashed through the driver’s side of her windshield.
McSweeney was struck on the left side of the head, District Attorney Janet DiFiore’s office said in a statement.
The car continued about a third of a mile on the parkway, striking a shoulder guardrail support beam before veering back onto the shoulder and traveling across the Bronx River Parkway split before coming to a stop in a woods near the Desmond Avenue off ramp.
Both McSweeney and her 87-year-old mother, who was in the passenger seat, were taken to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
McSweeney was pronounced dead there. Her mother was not injured.
Yonkers police investigated the incident but developed new information in 2009 that eventually led to the Plasencia’s arrest, police and prosecutors said.
Following his Wednesday arraignment, Plasencia, who was 17 at the time of the incident, was remanded to the Westchester County Jail. He is scheduled to appear in court again on Jan. 31.
If convicted, he faces up to 25 years in prison.
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