WESLEY HILLS — A 66-year-old man was accused Friday of brutally killing his live-in girlfriend by pounding her head and face with a thick-heeled boot nearly two dozen times and then kicking and punching her, breaking bones in her face and ribs, Ramapo police said.
Riad Dib, shackled at the waist and wearing a white jail garb and blue socks, was arraigned on a charge of second-degree murder in Ramapo Town Court and ordered held without bail in the Rockland County jail.
A Rockland grand jury will hear the murder charge Wednesday. The charge carries a sentence of 15 to 25 years to life in prison.
Cecile Garbarino, 68, a widow with two adult children and an elderly mother, died inside her house at 171 Grandview Ave., where police found her battered body at 12:45 a.m. in a blood-stained bedroom she shared with Dib, a Syrian national who ran a distribution business.
Rockland Assistant District Attorney Richard Kennison Moran called Garbarino’s killing a “heinous and barbaric murder in which she suffered 24 blows to her head.”
When Garbarino reached the telephone and tried to call for help, Dib kicked and punched her repeatedly, Moran said during the arraignment before Justice Rhoda Schoenberger.
Dib and Garbarino had an argument, leading to a physical confrontation that lasted from 10 p.m. Thursday to 12:41 a.m. Friday, the police criminal complaint stated.
Dib gave police a statement concerning her death.
“He became enraged,” Ramapo Detective Lt. Mark Emma said after court.
“He used the thick heel almost like a hammer and beat her about her head and face. He kicked her and broke her ribs. She suffered lots of blood loss,” Emma said.
Garbarino, whose husband, John, died in 2004, worked as a secretary for the past three years at Elmwood Elementary School for Principal Nancy Kavanagh in the East Ramapo School District. She had worked 10 years at Lime Kiln Elementary School. She also worked part-time at a local car dealership.
She “was like a grandmother to a lot of the kids,” East Ramapo security director Tom Carton said.