Police suspected murder-suicide when they found the bodies of Felicia Barahona and her 4-year-old son in her Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. The 36-year-old former teacher made headlines in 2013 when she was fired after having intimate relations with a student — the father of her infant son.
The building’s superintendent found the bodies on Monday after responding to neighbors’ complaints about a foul odor emanating from the apartment.
Barahona was discovered with an electrical cord around her neck. Her son was found drowned in a bathtub nearby.
The former teacher was fired from her $73,000-a-year job in 2012 after admitting she had relations with 18-year-old Isaac Duran.
Duran, now 21, admitted he killed his former lover and their son because he didn’t want to pay child support.
Duran, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, paid between $80 and $100 in child support weekly, according to The Post‘s sources.
Duran was supposed to spend Christmas with Barahona and their son at her mother’s house on West 56th Street, but they never showed up.
He played the role of the grieving father when he was initially contacted by police. He said he hadn’t seen her since 2011 when he last visited the apartment.
But police spotted Duran on the building’s surveillance cameras. He was seen entering the building and leaving hours later wearing different clothes.
Barahona, an Afghanistan war vet, moved to the US and took a job teaching at a Bronx high school. She soon grew close to then 17-year-old Duran, but she waited until he was 18 to have sexual relations with him.
According to the NY Post, the couple had sex 5 days a week. When Duran asked her to use condoms, she told him she “didn’t like” them and not to worry.
The couple broke up after she gave birth in 2012. She was terminated from her job the following year.
In her resume posted online, Barahona said she had 12 years experience as a teacher, but she didn’t mention being fired from her last job.
Neighbors described Barahona as a loving mother who doted on her son.
