Former Broadway dancer jailed for 20 years after murdering boyfriend
Marcus Bellamy claimed he would take crystal meth with his partner before he was murdered
By Steve Brown
A former Broadway dancer has been jailed for 20 years after he pleaded guilty of murdering his boyfriend.
Marcus Bellamy, 35, starred in the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark and most recently starred in the erotic gay thriller The Breeding.
However, in February this year, the actor and dancer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder of his boyfriend Bernardo Almonte back in 2016.
On the day of the murder, police were called by a neighbour to their New York City apartment where Almonte was found unconscious and suffering from a head wound.
He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Bellamy was arrested and subsequently pleaded guilty according to New York Daily News and this week, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison followed by five years supervision.
Before sentencing, he told the court: “I want to apologise to the family. Bernardo was very special, and he didn’t deserve what happened to him.
“You asked me why. Your son and I used to smoke a lot of crystal meth together.
“On this day, I thought your son was the devil. I didn’t want to do what I did. I want to make that clear.
“I loved Bernardo. He took me out of my depression. I didn’t mean to destroy somebody.”
During the sentencing, the victim’s mother broke down into tears as she revealed her son survived cancer 11 years before.
She said: “But he survived, he survived it. Eleven years later, I received the bad news. Bernardo was killed.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing – having won the battle over cancer, I was shocked to hear he had lost his life at the hands of someone else after God had given him a second chance of life.
“No human being deserves to die the way you killed my son. It was inhuman. For no reason. He was taken away and I still don’t know why.
“This is a question only you can answer for me: Why did you kill my son?”