A battle between two middle-aged men over a 24-year-old temptress ended in death in Brooklyn over the weekend.
Pedro Marquez, 46, fatally stabbed Michael Lebron, 40, in the heart with a kitchen knife, jealous that his girlfriend had been two-timing him with the man, police and witnesses said.
Cops said Lebron was stabbed Saturday on a sidewalk in Ocean Hill after confronting Marquez at their young lover’s apartment building on Mother Gaston Boulevard.
“Let’s see who’s going to die tonight! Let’s settle this right now!” Lebron shouted at Marquez, according to the woman in the middle of it all, Catalina Hernandez.
Marquez, who has a 2-month-old daughter and a second-floor apartment with Hernandez, stabbed Lebron twice in the stomach and once through the heart shortly before midnight, the woman said.
Hernandez said she began seeing Lebron about two months ago after giving birth to her fifth child and after she had become frustrated by Marquez’s neglect.
“We were arguing, and he wasn’t working, and I was doing everything alone,” she said. “I wanted to live a peaceful life.”
Of Lebron, whom she met at a cookout, Hernandez said: “He knew how to treat a woman. He wasn’t trying to have sex all the time. He just showed me attention emotionally. He knew how to be there.”
Marquez was charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon.
Only yesterday, Hernandez learned something new about her dead lover — that he had been seeing another woman.
A woman identifying herself as Lebron’s fiancée knocked on Hernandez’s door asking questions about their relationship.
“He told me he didn’t have a girlfriend,” Hernandez told the woman. “It’s crazy when a person dies you learn all his lies.”
The other woman said she was surprised to learn Hernandez was already involved with someone else.
“I hope you learned something from all of this,” the woman told Hernandez.
She declined to identify herself to reporters.
Earlier, Hernandez was denied access to Marquez at Brooklyn’s 73rd Precinct station. Instead, they exchanged notes.
“I love you,” Hernandez said in her note. “I’m going to be there for you.”
“I don’t put the blame on you,” Marquez wrote to her. “Please forgive me. It was not my intention to do this. I’ve been depressed. I feel sorry for what happened but that’s life.”