Relatives of a Peekskill man stabbed to death following a drunken argument expressed forgiveness towards the killer but told him that his actions that day had forever altered the lives of three generations, particularly the victim’s young son.
“The decision to use a knife is a decision to gamble with another person’s life,” Selina Curtin, cousin of Carlos Rodriguez, said in Westchester County Court Thursday, Feb. 19, at his killer’s sentencing. “No amount of time will ever be enough when someone is killed. Death is final. Our grief does not come with an end date.”
She called Rodriguez’ absence “overwhelming”. And she bemoaned how his son was left behind to ask questions that cannot be fully answered, to know his father died by violence and to remember him only through stories and memories.”
She never uttered the name of Walter Bustos-Solis, Rodriguez’ killer.
“To the one responsible,” she said. “My cousin did not get a second chance. His son did not get another chance to be held, taught and protected by his father.”
Moments later, state Supreme Court Justice James McCarty imposed the 15-year prison term he promised last month when Bustos-Solis, 46, pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in the June 2024 killing of Rodriguez.
The stabbing occurred on Main Street early on the morning of June 10, 2024, after Bustos-Solis and the 33-yearold Rodriguez got into an argument after drinking at Tiffany’s, a bar and restaurant.
Rodriguez punched Bustos-Solis, who pulled out a knife and stabbed Rodriguez. As the victim tried to get away, Bustos-Solis chased after him, stabbing him multiple times in the legs.
Rodriguez died from his injuries six days later at Westchester Medical Center.
Bustos-Solis fled the state and was with his ex-wife in Connecticut before making it to Mexico. She initially claimed she heard he was in trouble but hadn’t seen him in a year. Surveillance video showing her with him at a Connecticut hotel in the days after the stabbing led to her arrest for hindering prosecution but she died while the criminal case was pending.
Bustos-Solis was caught near Puebla, Mexico in June 2025 after authorities learned he had set up a Facebook account using a computer in that area.
He was initially charged with second-degree murder but was spared a possible life sentence when prosecutors Brian Bendish and Brianna Ciuffi agreed he could plead to the lesser manslaughter charge.
In a letter read in court by a Spanish interpreter, Aida Iris Morales Rodriguez thanked God that the authorities were able to make an arrest in her brother’s slaying so that the family could have justice. She said she suspects the killer has had to live with what happened in his heart and mind just as her family has.
The end of the case meant the family could be “free from the emotional prison” they’ve been in and that they will not dwell much on Bustos-Solis.
“When you pop in our minds we’ll just pray for you and we will wish you the best,” she wrote. “But that will not happen very often because we are going to be thinking about the happy times with our loved one.”
She asked for God to bless Bustos-Solis but reminded him, that whether he believes in God or not, her family can rest knowing there will ultimately be a judgment from God. She said she forgives him and hopes he can one day forgive himself, calling forgiveness “liberating, healing, a winning decision.”
Bendish said the killing was the result of “terrible decision making after a night of drinking” and that while the relatives’ found it in their hearts to forgive Bustos-Solis “there are consequences under the law for his decision making, for the fact that he robbed a child of his father, siblings of their brother and parents of their son.”
When McCarty asked Bustos-Solis if he had anything to say to him or Rodriguez’ family, the defendant responded with only “I apologize”.
The relatives did not assail the plea deal but suggested it was insufficient.
“A short sentence cannot fully represent what was taken from us,” Curtin said. “I place my anger, grief and heartbreak in God’s hands, trusting that the true justice is seen by Him even when human justice is incomplete.”
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Fatal Peekskill stabbing gets killer 15-year prison term
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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