A maniac already serving time for murdering his ex-girlfriend was charged Friday in the cold case murder of a well-known transgender performer — known as the “Puerto Rican Beyoncé” — who was found dead in a 2012 Brooklyn fire, cops and sources said.
Henry Pacheco, 44, was charged with murder, arson and petit larceny in connection to the May 12, 2012 death of Lorena Escalera, 25, who went by the stage name Lorena Xtravaganza, cops said.
Early that morning, Pacheco called Escalera multiple times before trudging up to the victim’s third-floor apartment on Furman Avenue near Bushwick Avenue, Assistant District Attorney Steven Bravo said during the alleged killer’s Friday afternoon arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
“After about an hour the defendant was seen exiting the building as the fire began to take over the building,” Bravo said. “The origin of the fire was the bedroom where the victim’s body was found.”
Other residents managed to escape, but Escalera was found lifeless on her bed with burns on her body as first responders descended on her burning apartment, according to prosecutors and sources.
Investigators believe Pacheco murdered Escalera and then set the apartment on fire to cover his tracks, sources said Friday.
Bravo confirmed that Escalera “was deceased before the fire started,” and that she died by “homicidal violence.”
The fire marshal determined that the blaze began in Pacheco’s bed, and it “was not natural nor accidental,” the DA’s office said.
Pacheco’s exact relationship to Escalera was not immediately known.
Someone made a call on the victim’s phone after her death, and that caller was known to Pacheco, but not to Escalera, Bravo said.
Those who knew Escalera called her the “Puerto Rican Beyoncé.”
“Every time she got on stage, no matter the place, the crowd used to enjoy her performance,” club manager Adolfo Diaz Estrada told The Post at the time.
Nearly five years after Escalera’s murder, Pacheco allegedly murdered his ex-girlfriend Brooke Garcia, 27, inside an East Village apartment on January 4, 2017, according to sources and a criminal complaint.
Loved ones told WABC at the time that Garcia, who had a young daughter, was staying with an aunt as she worked to get back on her feet.
“It was a horrible death,” her aunt told the network. “I don’t know why somebody would do something like that. She didn’t deserve it.”
Pacheco was sentenced to 20 years to life behind bars in connection to that murder.
Records show he had been locked up in the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, NY since July of 2019, and he is not eligible for parole until 2038, according to the records.
He was linked to Escalera’s murder while held in the state lock-up and transported to the Big Apple to face those charges, sources said.
Judge Jeffrey Gershuny ordered Pacheco held without bail in Escalera’s murder.
Pacheco, who was handcuffed during the proceedings, said nothing but shook his head when detectives walked him out.
“Ms. Escalera came to Brooklyn to pursue her dreams of becoming a performer, but her life was brutally snuffed out instead when she was only 25,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement about the arrest. “The quest for justice lasted over a decade but today we are able to charge her alleged killer who we’ll now seek to hold fully responsible for this killing and the arson that put many other lives at risk.”
