Police say the 58-year-old victim was found unconscious with multiple lacerations to her body on Ellsworth Avenue in the Throggs Neck section just after 7 a.m. Thursday.
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"I heard a loud bang, I actually thought it was a gunshot," witness Dave Colon said. "I looked out my window and I saw a car struck another vehicle. I saw a man moving his car back and forth, and he got out. Then I heard a lady screaming, 'Help her, help her, he's is going to kill her.'...It turns out he was hitting her with a machete, and I saw him take off."
Colon rushed to help the woman, but it was too late.
"By the time I got down, she was in pretty bad shape and the cops ended up coming," he said. "My heart dropped. Wish I could have done something. I did the best I could do. I called the cops."
The woman was pronounced dead at Jacobi Medical Center. She has been identified as Noelia Mateo.
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Detectives are looking for her 63-year-old ex-husband, Victor Mateo.
Police believe he crashed his car into the back of a white minivan, then got into Mateo's car and ran her over with it before attacking her with a machete.
He then fled the scene.
Police say Mateo was stabbed in front of her two young grandchildren.
Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
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