Could you imagine? Being a normal college student in the 1990’s, partying on occasion with friends. This was was typical life for 20 year old Kimberly Antonakos.
However, on March 1st, 1995, Kimberly’s life would be taken from her. Not for any valid reason or vendetta, but for money. She had her entire life ahead of her, and it was all gone in just one night and in the most horrific way possible.
The story of Kimberly Antonakos’s tragic murder is one that has stuck with me for years since hearing about it. It’s very upsetting for many people, so continue reading at your own discretion.
Kimberly Antonakos, also known by her friends and family as “Kim”, was a 20 year old college student living in Brooklyn, New York in 1995. She was attending the College of Staten Island studying business at the time.
Kim had grew up in New York City, and she lived with her mother for most of her life because her parents were divorced. However, she did get to see her father regularly on weekends and eventually when it came time for her to attend college her mother decided to move away to Florida.
Her mother decided to give Kim the option since she was an adult at this point, to either move with her to Florida or stay with her father in New York. Kim decided to stay in New York because it was home to her and where she wanted to go to college.
Kim was the only child of a very rich business man who owned a computer company named Thomas Antonakos. It was said that her father gave everything and more to Kim. She was considered to be “spoiled” by her father, but she was always appreciative for everything that he gave her.
Her father had set her up in her own apartment in Brooklyn, New York while attending college and it was said that she was thriving in New York City. She even had a part time job where she helped her father pay for part of this apartment because he wanted to teach her some responsibility.
It was always a dream of Kims to live on her own during college in the city, make a lot of friends, and just have the college experience she had always dreamed of. Her father was worried about her now living on her own in the city, but he bought Kim a cell phone, a pitbull puppy, and would check in with her regularly so she always felt safe and taken care of.
Like most college students, Kim enjoyed partying on the weekends with her friends from school. Her favorite thing to do on a night out was go salsa dancing with her friends.
Her father and friends have since described her as being a passionate young woman, with such a love for life and everything that came along with it. She was always kind and humble, and always willing to help out anyone in need. Little did she know at the time, this caring and helping nature is what would eventually betray her in the end.
February 28th, 1995 was a night just like any other for Kim. That night she had gone out with her friend Liz Pace salsa dancing like she usually would on the weekends. After dancing, they attended a house party. She was out Liz and other friends partying into the early hours of the morning on March 1st, 1995.
Around 4 a.m. that morning Kim and her friend Liz decided it was time to leave this party and go home for the night. Kim dropped Liz off at her apartment, and then proceeded to drive herself home. Kim arrived home that night and parked her car as she typically would. She then got out of her car and headed into her home.
Kim walked up to her garage door to unlock it as that was how she usually entered into her apartment each day, and before she could even unlock the door and get inside she was grabbed by two men that came out of nowhere.
These men proceeded to approach Kim and threaten her with a handgun. They then ductaped her hands behind her back, gagged her so she couldn’t scream for help, and placed a bag over her head so she couldn’t see what was happening. Kim was terrified and trying to fight these men off of her but they were able to overpower her especially now that she was restrained.
These men then grabbed the car keys that Kim had dropped during the struggle, unlocked her car, and threw her in the trunk of her own car. These men then jumped into her car quickly and began driving away from her apartment with her still in the trunk.
When Kim didn’t show up for her work shift later in the day on March 1st, 1995 her co-workers became worried about her because it wasn’t like Kim to not show up without letting anyone know. Her co-workers decided to call Thomas, Kim’s father, and let him know that she didn’t show up for work and they didn’t know where she could be.
When Thomas found out about his daughter being missing, he immediately went to her apartment to see if she was there and she wasn’t. After this, Thomas immediately went to the local police department to report his daughter as missing.
Little did Kim’s father and authorities know at the time, the two men that abducted Kim that morning took her to the basement of a vacant home in Queens, New York.
Kim was tied to a chair in the basement, still gagged with the bag over her head. These men proceeded to leave Kim in this basement and hold her captive for three days.
Kim was left in this dark and cold basement alone. She was given no food or water, and no way to use the bathroom besides on herself.
Police were doing everything they could at the time to try to find out what possibly could have happened to Kim. This is when they visited Kim’s apartment to look around, and discovered that even though she had no roommates, there was people living there at the time.
The people living in this apartment with Kim was actually her friend April, her 23 year old husband Joshua Torres and their two year old son. Kim was good friends with April for about a year before this tragedy occurred. April and her husband Joshua did have an apartment of their own but a few weeks before Kim’s disappearance they were actually kicked out of their apartment because the floors were being redone and they couldn’t stay there while this was happening.
April, her husband, and their son didn’t have anywhere to go at the time, and Kim being the caring and helpful person she was decided to let them stay with her for the time being. April, Joshua, and their son had been staying with Kim in her spare bedroom for about two weeks at this point.
Three days after Kim’s disappearance, on March 4th, 1995, firefighters were called to the seen of a house fire in a vacant home in Queens, New York. When firefighters entered the home to put out this fire, they made a horrific discovery in the basement that they could have never expected.
It was a body of a young woman, and it was clear to investigators right away that this fire was set intentionally in order to dispose of evidence.
This fire was put out and after professionals were able to examine the burned body of this young woman from the basement, they discovered from the tattoos she had and dental records, that this was the body of 20 year old Kimberly Antonakos.
Kim had finally been found, but not in the way everyone had hoped for. She had been murdered, and her body was set on fire, and nobody could understand the reasoning why. The most upsetting part about all of this was that investigators were able to determine that when Kim’s body was set on fire in the basement, she was actually still alive. They knew this because they found traces of smoke in her lungs from breathing it in during the fire.
Nobody could understand how this could have happened to Kim of all people, and the real question police were having a hard time figuring out was why?
After Kim’s body was discovered, police were still trying absolutely everything they could to discover what could have possibly happened to her. However, police didn’t have much evidence to go off of, so for awhile Kim’s case went cold.
Six months later though, on September 6th, 1995 two witnesses, a male and female, came forward to police with new information regarding Kim’s case. They told police that their friend had been bragging about the murder of Kim Antonakos. This friend was Joshua Torres. The man that Kim had willingly allowed to live in her home with his family when they had nowhere else to go.
Police were shocked to hear this information, and they immediately began looking into the theory that Joshua could be involved in Kim’s murder.
Police began with looking into Joshua’s friends, because they didn’t believe he could have committed this murder alone. Police brought in Joshua’s friend Julio Negron. After police began interrogating Julio regarding Kim’s murder, they discovered that him and Kim had actually dated for a period of time and they met through Joshua Torres.
It was said that Julio absolutely loved Kim, but they broke up because she wasn’t interested in fully committing to him. After police continued to push and question Julio more about Kim’s murder, he actually ended up confessing. He didn’t confess to actually murdering Kim, but he did confess to knowing about the planning of it.
Julio implicated Joshua Torres in his confession to police, so they decided to officially arrest him at that point. Joshua continued denying any involvement in Kim’s abduction and murder, but police actually began talking to Joshua’s wife, April, that was also living with Kim when the murder occurred. April told police that she thought Joshua actually might have something to do with the murder after all.
According to April, in the days after Kim had disappeared there was actually an appeal for her return on the news. Joshua was sitting in the living room with his friends, Jose Negron, and another man named Nicholas Libretti, watching this on the news. After the news appeal was over, all three men apparently got up and left the house immediately.
April found this to be really strange at the time, but she didn’t think her husband could ever have something to do with what happened to Kim. However, sixth months later, when police were asking her if she noticed any weird behavior from Joshua and if she thought he could be involved she began to to think there was a chance he could be.
After police heard what April had to say and Julio Negron’s confession, they decided to bring in Nicholas Libretti to see if they could get a confession out of him.
*Just as a note, although both Julio and Jose (“Joey”) have the same last name of Negron, they are not related in anyway and were both just friends of Joshua’s at the time.*
That is now four men police believe have some involvement in the abduction and murder of Kimberly Antonakos. The case was getting very complicated for the police to understand at this point, but they were determined to find out what happened to Kim and give her family and friends the closure they deserved.
When police interrogated Nicholas Libretti, he quickly confessed to the abduction and murder, however; he blamed Joshua for the entire thing even though they were all involved.
From here on, through Nicholas, police were able to finally understand the full story of what happened to Kim in those days she was gone and then later horrifically murdered.
This entire plan began with 23 year old Joshua Torres. Apparently the plan wasn’t to ever murder her in the first place, but to simply abduct her and hold her hostage for money.
This began when Joshua had drove by an expensive car one day with Nicholas and Joey that he really wanted, but he didn’t have the money to buy this car because he didn’t have a job. They all began discussing how to get the money to afford this car, and that’s when Joshua mentioned to them that his “good friend” Kim that he was staying with at the time had money.
They all then began to discuss the idea of kidnapping her and holding her for ransom so they all wouldn’t ever have to worry about money again. The idea continued to spiral from there, and Joshua, Nicholas, and Joey all began putting this plan into motion.
Because Joshua lived with Kim, he knew that she would be out partying with friends on February 28th, 1995 into the early hours of the morning of March 1st. So he decided this would be the perfect time to put his plan into motion.
Joshua informed Nicholas and Joey of this, and instructed them to follow Kim that night and to kidnap her from the driveway when she arrived home. Joshua stayed in bed with his wife April while his friends outside abducted Kim and took her to the vacant house. He wasn’t involved in the kidnapping because he knew that staying home with April all night would give him a solid alibi to the police.
So, Joey and and Nicholas followed Kim around that night without her knowledge, and when she arrived home in the early hours of the morning on March 1st, 1995 that is when they abducted her and took her to the basement of that vacant house in Queens.
Their plan all along after Kim was being held hostage in the basement was to get ransom money from her father. After Joey and Nicholas abducted her, they informed Joshua that it was done and they tried to continue their plan from there.
After Kim was left in the basement alone, Joey and Nicholas went to a nearby payphone to call Kim’s father. Nicholas played a recording during this phone call with his voice altered previously that said
“Hugged your daughter or seen your daughter lately? $75,000 of your money or your daughter?”
However, it was later discovered that although Thomas did have a message on his answering machine from this payphone call, it was all silence. It turns out that Nicholas actually played this recorded message too soon and Thomas was never able to hear it, all he heard was silence.
Joshua, Joey, and Nicholas all believed that Thomas was simply ignoring this ransom request. So instead of trying again, they were just waiting for him to respond and getting more and more angry when he never did.
The men said that it was supposed to be Julio that was taking care of Kim by giving her food and water while she was tied up in this basement. They wanted to make sure Kim stayed alive long enough for them to their money, and none of them wanted to be the one to take care of her that’s why they told Julio about their plan in the first place.
However, as it turns out, Julio actually wanted nothing to do with this plan at all after they informed him. He didn’t want to get into any trouble or be involved, so instead of going to the police or going to care for Kim like he was supposed to, he just decided to ignore it and not go at all.
This is why Kim was left alone for these three days. Without food and water, and being freezing cold in this basement, she began to become very ill and slip in out and out of consciousness.
According to Joshua, Joey, and Nicholas, on March 4th, 1995 they were actually planning on letting Kim go at this point. They hadn’t heard back from Thomas regarding the ransom so they essentially decided to give up with the plan altogether.
All three of them arrived at the home and went down to the basement that day, and that’s when they discovered Kim very weak and passed out where they had left her. They told investigators that they believed she was dead so that’s when they decided they needed to get rid of evidence so they poured gasoline on her body and lit the fire.
They had planned to burn the house down to destroy evidence after letting Kim go anyways, but now since they believed she was already dead they just decided to do it with her still inside. What they weren’t aware of at the time, is that Kim was still alive in that basement and they had set the fire and left her there to burn to death.
Joshua actually spoke to Kim before lighting her on fire, his last words to her were
“Sorry it has to end this way, life sucks”
Joshua then kissed Kim on the forehead, poured the gasoline on her body and all over the basement, lit the fire, and all three men left the house in a hurry.
These three men got away with this abduction and murder for six months. However, it all came to an end when police finally pieced it all together and everyone was horrified to discover that Kim was killed by her friend. Someone she trusted and allowed to stay in her home. Joshua Torres was the mastermind behind Kim’s murder.
Joshua and Nicholas were both then charged with kidnapping, murder, arson, and robbery. Julio wasn’t being charged as of right now because police didn’t believe he was actually involved in this crime, just guilty of not doing anything to stop it. Julio was going to be used to testify against Nicholas and Joshua in court.
You may be asking though, what about the other man involved in this murder?
Joey Negron, well he was already dead when police discovered all of this. On June 23rd, 1995, three months after Kim’s murder, Joey was shot and killed from behind while walking in the street with his girlfriend and child.
Police never actually found Joey’s killer. However, people now theorize that Joshua was the one who killed him because he thought Joey was going to go to the police about Kim’s murder. Police have never been able to connect Joshua to this murder officially because there wasn’t any evidence, but most people believe this is what happened to him.
Joshua Torres and Nicholas Libretti went to trial for their charges and were both found guilty. They were sentenced to the maximum penalty at the time which was 58 years each. Julio Negron was sentenced to only 2-6 years for his knowledge of this crime taking place but not being directly involved.
In the end, justice was served for the devastating kidnapping and murder of Kimberly Antonakos. However, that doesn’t make it any easier for Kim’s loved ones.
Kimberly was tortured and killed for the senseless reason of money. It was done by someone she considered a friend, and that’s the saddest part of all.
Kim’s murder was one of the most gruesome and upsetting that Queens, New York had seen at the time.
Kim’s father has since felt a lot guilt for his daughters murder. He said if he would have received the ransom call that day he would have paid any amount of money to have her back, and he wishes everyday that he would have gotten that message.
Kim’s father has also stated that
“Her goodness was her weakness.”
She was such a giving and loving person, and in the end her killers took advantage of that. Kim’s loved ones want the public to remember who she was and honor her memory. This crime was senseless and horrific, and Kim will forever be loved and missed by everyone that knew her.
Sources:
Zeeshan, R. (2022, July 8). Betrayal & Then Burned alive - the case of Kim Antonakos. Medium.