Gladys Ricart is 39 years old and lives in New Jersey with her two children. She moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States when she was very young. She lived a good life and worked as a filer for a travel agency.
Gladys’s family said that when she met Agustn Garcia, on September 26, 1999, she was at her most vulnerable. Garcia was a rich businessman from New York who had become an American citizen. He, too, is Dominican.
They both fell in love, and their relationship went through many changes. Gladys is a beautiful woman with a strong personality. And Agustin doesn’t have a very attractive body, which makes him a very shy person.
Gladys decides to leave Agustn and start over because of his cheating and unhealthy jealousy, as well as his verbal and physical attacks on her. He would never leave her alone, though.
Even when she met James Preston Jr., who would later make her fall in love with him and become her fiance. Well, Agustn will follow her around and bother her. Even when she shares it with her fiancé at home or at work.
Gladys never once or twice told her family and friends about her fears. In fact, they were caught on surveillance cameras together in a store just a few days before the wedding. In those pictures, you can see a scary Gladys who is stuck there against her will. Surveillance cameras caught Agustn and a scared Gladys a few days before the wedding. But she has made up her mind, and she is going to start a new life.
She came on September 26, 1999. Gladys and James got married, and Agustin was there to see it. Several wedding guests saw him walking around the bride and groom’s house, but they didn’t tell him because they didn’t want to ruin the bride’s party.
Agustn walked into the house while photos of Gladys and her friends and family were being taken. People thought he had accepted his fate because he was dressed well for the event, and since he was a well-educated businessman, they thought he would go to the wedding to congratulate the bride.
Agustin took out a Smith & Wesson revolver in front of the camera and shot Gladys, who was wearing a snow-white wedding dress. The bridesmaids’ screams were heard as the attacker’s brother, Juan Ricarte, jumped on top of him, grabbed the weapon, and held him down. The final straw. On the bottom left, you can see the murder weapon. Gladys is trying to hide herself in the middle.
It was too late, though. Gladys died because she was shot three times. A few minutes later, the police came and put him in jail. Gladys’s death shocked the whole country and showed how immature many jealous men were who wouldn’t let a woman leave them for any reason.
Late in 2002, Augustine was found guilty of first-degree murder and given a life sentence in Bergen County Superior Court. Hundreds of people marched through Washington Heights this morning to remember Gladys Ricart, a 39-year-old Dominican woman who was killed on her wedding day in 1999 by her ex-boyfriend.
