A 40-year-old Bronx nurse found dead in the woods in Westchester County earlier this week died of asphyxiation, authorities say, and her ex-NYPD cop husband, Eddy Coello, is being eyed as a "person of interest" in the case.
Police say Tina Adovasio also suffered blunt trauma to the head and chest.
Adovasio, who worked at Sound Shore Medical Center in New Rochelle, had been missing since Friday night. Her body was discovered in a wooded area off the Taconic Parkway in Yorktown Heights on Wednesday evening.
Coello, 38, briefly visited a Bronx police precinct Thursday morning. He did not comment to reporters as he left, but Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said Coello had refused to give a DNA sample.
Coello was named a "person of interest" in the case Kelly said. Coello's lawyer said he has not been charged.
Coello left the NYPD in 2000 amid numerous domestic violence complaints, law-enforcement officials said.
Adovasio filed for divorce less than a month ago, her lawyer told the TimesThursday. She has been granted an order of protection, but she decided not to serve Coello with the papers.
The couple had been together for several years and had a 5-year-old daughter. They married about a year and a half ago, according to the Times.
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An ex-wife of Coello told The Daily News Friday Coello had abused her during their three-year relationship, assaulting her and threatening her with a gun.
"He would point the gun to my head and look me in the eye and say, 'Today you are going to die,'" Glory Perez told the News. "I would beg for my life."
Coello and Perez had a son together, but when Perez's violent behavior threatened the child, she chose to leave her husband in 2000, she told the News.
"He threw me down while I was holding my baby," she said. "He threw me near an open window, but I was able to land on the bed. Then he destroyed the nursey. The crib. Everything."
A neighbor who lived next to Coello and Adovasio's home in the Throgs Neck section of the Bronx told the Times that fights between the couple had seemed to intensify in recent weeks.
Police said Thursday they were reviewing video footage shot outside the couple's apartment building, according to the Times.
