Shouts of hatred rained down hard on an unrepentant East Harlem murderer today, as he was slammed with a maximum sentence for the cowardly crime of shooting his ex in the head while she slept.
“You killed my Godchild!” shouted one bereaved relative of tragic Sherra Morgenstern as her brutal killer, Edward Demirdjian, 58, was led away from a Manhattan courtroom to serve a 25-to-life prison sentence.
“You f—ing punk!” the relative, Norman Odum, 44, hollered, standing in his seat and pointing at the murderer, court officers moving in to quiet him.
“I raised her and you murdered her!” the distraught godfather shouted. “I know where you at for the next 25 years. You won’t take nothing else from me!”
Demirdjian slaughtered the pretty 26 year old — with whom he’d had a three-year-old child– in 2009 as she slept in her Jefferson Houses bedroom. The former limo owner from Orlando, Fla., then left Morgenstern to rot where she lay, and all so he could keep custody of their daughter and cash in on a $250,000 insurance policy, lead prosecutor Shanda Strain had argued.
Demirdjian had been convicted in just 17 minutes at the end of his February trial before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Charles Solomon. That didn’t stop the killer from continuing to gallingly claim his innocence.
“I am here the victim,” Demirdjian protested when given a chance to speak at his sentencing. “I did not kill Sherra, who I love. I still love Sherra to death — she’s my baby. She’s my life.”
The judge noted the speed of Demirdjian’s verdict in noting, “There was no question at all of the defendant’s guilt.” Demirdjian’s gun matched the shell casings recovered from Morgenstern’s hair, and cell tower records tracked his phone as it traveled up the eastern seaboard from Orlando to Manhattan on the day of her murder.
Two of Morgenstern’s aunts of the victim also spoke at the sentence.
“I hope her daughter never finds out that she has a father who is a beast and a monster,” said one aunt, Mary Felder, 71, of Milwaukee.
“You are a murderer. A liar. A manipulator. A con,” said Annette Odum, 72, of Brooklyn, said as Demirdjian shook his head “No” at the defense table. “You are evil,” she told him.