SUFFOLK COUNTY, N.Y. (SCDAO) – Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney today announced that Darren Mansfield, 23, pleaded guilty to Manslaughter in the First Degree and Strangulation in the Second Degree and will receive a sentence of 30 years for the strangulation murder of his 22-year-old female victim in April 2021 and the strangulation of another female victim in November 2020.
“The violence this defendant used against these two women is unimaginable. One of the victims while severely injured, managed to escape with her life, but the other was not as fortunate. Her life was senselessly taken from her, and her loved ones must bear that loss,” said District Attorney Tierney. “Enough is enough. A 30-year sentence is the only appropriate punishment for the brutality of these acts and to ensure that the public is protected against this individual.”
Mansfield also pleaded guilty to one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree in an unrelated incident.
The evidence in this case established that on November 22, 2020, Mansfield was on a date at the Bay Shore Marina when he placed the first female victim in a headlock and applied such force to her neck that he caused petechiae to both her eyes and mouth, as well as severe swelling and bruising to both of her eyes.
In April 2021, while Mansfield was out on bail after he had been arrested and indicted for the strangulation of the first victim, the family of the homicide victim, Frania Espinal, who had been dating Mansfield, reported her missing to the Suffolk County Police Department. On or about April 10, 2021, video evidence showed Mansfield and Espinal entering the defendant’s apartment at 1797 Heckscher Avenue in Bay Shore. Espinal was never seen alive again and her family thereafter reported her as missing, causing law enforcement to begin an investigation into her disappearance. Mansfield was arrested after stating to a friend that he strangled someone and had the body in his residence. A search warrant was executed at Mansfield’s residence and Espinal’s body was found wrapped in a tarp in the bedroom of the residence. The Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide with the cause of death being strangulation. Espinal had multiple injuries including blunt force trauma to her head, multiple hemorrhages to her neck and a fracture of the thyroid cartilage.
Mansfield pleaded guilty on March 29, 2023
