The bruised body of a Bronx mom of four who was the estranged wife of an abusive ex-NYPD cop was found yesterday in a wooded area off a Westchester highway, police sources told The Post.
Tina Adovasio, who vanished Friday, was discovered by two kids riding ATVs near the Taconic Parkway in Yorktown Heights.
“The police called me earlier and asked if she had any identifying marks,” her ex-husband, Joseph Adovasio — who is not the former cop — said.
“I told them she had a tattoo on her ankle, a starburst. It’s not colored in, it’s blue. They’ve must’ve identified her using that.”
He said the thought of telling their three children was overwhelming. “But we’ll handle this as a family. We’re a very tight-knit family.” he said.
The grim discovery came as it was learned that Adovasio told her divorce lawyer her husband, Eddy Coello, would be to blame if she were ever harmed.
Adovasio told The Post Thursday that Coello “absolutely” was responsible for Tina Adovasio’s death. “He’s beat her up before.”
“If anything happens to me, look at him,” Tina Adovasio said last month as she took out an order of protection against Coello, 38, according to police sources.
Coello, who has a 5-year-old daughter with Adovasio, is a “person of interest” in the pretty maternity nurse’s death, the sources said. He was the last to see her alive and called 911 to report her missing, but has since hired a lawyer.
Coello, accompanied by his lawyer, walked into the 45th Precinct stationhouse this morning to be quizzed by cops. He walked out 25 minutes later a free man and sped off in an awaiting car.
Sources told The Post that Coello told them she scratched him during a fight and stormed off.
Cops had been searching for Adovasio’s body yesterday in Pelham Bay Park, a short drive from the couple’s Throggs Neck home, where the 40-year-old mother of four was last seen at 9 p.m. Friday.
Coello was later seen on surveillance video carrying a sheet and a large duffel bag from the Edison Avenue home. Detectives have focused their probe on him.
“One of the cops told me they’re gonna squeeze him till he pops,” her ex said.
Cops impounded Coello’s car yesterday and brought it to a Queens garage, where crime-scene detectives scoured it for clues.
Also, investigators from the NYPD and Medical Examiner’s Office — including a blood-spatter expert — searched the couple’s home for forensic evidence.
Court records show Coello is a hothead who once went berserk while his wife cradled their crying 1-year-old daughter, Mia, smashing trophies and breaking her cellphone against a wall.
“Wait till you see what I am going to do to your f- – king car. I am going to break all the windows,” Coello screamed in February 2006, the complaint says.
The ex-housing cop was forced to quit the NYPD in 2000 because of a domestic dispute with a previous ex-wife, sources said.
Additional reporting by Erin Calabrese, Reuven Fenton and Joe Mollica