WHITE PLAINS – A former day laborer in the North Salem area pled guilty in Westchester County Court on Monday to killing Lois Elizabeth Colley, 83, of North Salem in November 2015.
District Attorney Anthony Scarpino, Jr. said Esdras Gomez, 34, also known as Victor, faces 25 years to life in prison when sentenced in June.
Prosecutors said the motive for the killing stemmed from a dispute with the Colley family starting in 2012, when he was a day laborer on the farm.
The victim was found by a farm worker lying in a pool of blood in her home laundry room on November 9, 2015. She had been bludgeoned to death.
She had been alone at the time when the worker found her and called her husband, Eugene Colley, who was at work.
During the initial investigation, State Police found what appeared to be a pin from a discharged fire extinguisher near her body. A search of the family’s 300-acre horse farm turned up the extinguisher wrapped in a plastic bag in a pond on the property.
Forensic testing determined the victim’s DNA was on it and it was confirmed as the murder weapon. In early 2016, Gomez became a person of interest, but he had fled to Guatemala on November 14, 2015, four days after the murder. After an intensive international manhunt with the cooperation of the US State Department and the FBI, Gomez was located in Mexico and returned to Westchester County.
