A father of two beaten to death during a drunken fight on a Bronx sidewalk was an animal lover who dreamed of returning to his native Mexico, his heartbroken family said Thursday.
Jesus Garcia-Desiderio, 46, died Tuesday — three days after he was left brain dead from a beating he suffered after a night of drinking, his wife and son said. HIs death has been deemed a homicide but no arrests have been made.
“I’m constantly crying,” the victim’s wife, Tamisha Velasquez said. “I can’t control my emotions. I’m always thinking about him.”
Garcia-Desiderio clashed with two men in front of a restaurant on Stratford Ave. near Westchester Ave. in Soundview shortly before 5 a.m. Saturday, cops said. He was just a block from home when he was beaten.
Suffering brain damage from the attack, he was rushed by medics to Jacobi Medical Center.
Velasquez, 42, said cops told her as many as five people may have been involved in the attack. When she arrived at the hospital, her husband was already on life support.
“The first day that we got there, Saturday, they said he does not look good,” said Velasquez, who works as a nurse. “They kept insisting but I was like, ‘I want him to get all the medications that he needs to come out of this.’ You can see I was in denial. I wasn’t accepting what was going on.”
The grim reality slowly set in as the family got more information.
“He did have some gag reflex but then afterwards he didn’t have one, which means that he is brain dead,” Velasquez said. “He wasn’t gonna progress and they cannot keep him on the ventilator because he’s dead already, he’s brain dead.”
“The neurosurgeon came on Tuesday and he made his assessment and he confirmed that my husband was brain dead,” she added.
The couple had been married for nearly 20 years and together since she was 18. Her husband was from Mexico City and came to the Bronx when he was 20. They raised two sons, 17 and 21.
“I met him through my aunt.,” Velasquez explained. “He saw me and instantly he really liked me.”
His other passions were his remodeling work — he specialized in kitchens — and animals. The family had two dogs and three cats, all but one strays he picked up and gave a new home.
“He loves dogs and cats,” Velasquez said. “He likes nature, all other animals. That’s why we have five pets in my home, because he wanted them.”
“The kittens, he saved them,” she added. “His friends were giving them out. They were the last kittens and no one wanted them. He felt really bad and he brought them home.”
“The dogs, my son wanted a dog and he bought a dog. There was another dog, a female stray. She was left abandoned, tied up to a gate. He would be at the location every day for about two weeks and no one came for her so he brought her home.”
At work, he took no shortcuts.
“He was very, very detailed, which is why sometimes it would take longer but the outcome is always the best.,” she said. “His job is very strenuous on him.”
During his downtime, Garcia-Desiderio liked playing handball and soccer. And drinking.
“On the weekend he goes out to drink,” said the victim’s son, Michael Garcia, 21.
Garcia-Desiderio never returned after moving to New York City.
The family launched a GoFundMe site to raise money to send to send Garcia-Desiderio’s body back to Mexico.
“He was telling my mom, ‘Let’s go to Mexico. Let’s be in Mexico,’” his son said. “That’s why my mom wants to take his body to Mexico. He wanted to go back to move there. But he has family here so it wasn’t very possible to do that. His mom and dad died and he never got to see them.”
Velasquez said she has two goals: to reunite her husband with his parents and to see his killers punished.
“I want you to pay,” she said of the on-the-loose attackers. “That’s what I want. I want them to go to jail for their crimes.”
