Bushwick man sentenced: 27-Life for murder, burial of replacement in job

Buried body behind grandmother’s house, after texting from victim’s phone

July 6, 2023 Special from Brooklyn DA

District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. Photo: Mary Altaffer/AP.

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DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez has announced that a Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 27 years to life in prison for a 2017 murder in which he fatally strangled a building superintendent in Bushwick who had been hired to replace him. The defendant then attempted to cover up the crime by burying the victim’s body in an unmarked grave outside his grandmother’s house.

District Attorney Gonzalez said, “The senselessness of this cold-blooded murder shocks the conscience, and my heart continues to be with Daniel Rivera’s loved ones. Today’s lengthy prison sentence makes our community safer and ensures this defendant will pay a heavy price for this callous and horrific crime.”

The District Attorney identified the defendant as Keith Floyd, 44, of Bushwick, Brooklyn. He was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Rhonda Ziomaida Tomlinson to 27 years to life in prison. He was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree hindering prosecution, and concealment of a human corpse, on Feb. 21, 2023, following a jury trial.

The District Attorney said that, according to the evidence, on Sept. 27, 2017, in the vicinity of 146 Grove Street, the defendant killed Daniel Rivera by asphyxiation. At the time, the 41-year-old victim was working as a superintendent for a building management company in Bushwick. Rivera had been hired to replace the defendant after the defendant was fired in April 2017 following his arrest for gun possession. Additionally, the defendant was facing eviction from his apartment at 91 Himrod Street on Sept. 29, 2017. Once vacated, the company-owned apartment would have gone to Rivera.

Several days before his scheduled eviction, according to the evidence, the defendant began to communicate with the victim by phone calls and text messages. On Sept. 27, 2017, the day of the murder, the defendant texted with the victim for seven hours. Extensive evidence including video and surveillance footage provide a detailed timeline of the defendant’s interactions with the victim.

The defendant left his apartment at 91 Himrod Street at approximately 3:05 p.m. and walked about five blocks to 146 Grove Street, which is one of the properties that Rivera cleaned and maintained. Approximately 40 minutes later, the defendant killed the victim at that property.

Later that evening the defendant and his sister, Adrianna Floyd, 41, returned to the Grove Street property, wrapped the victim’s body in several trash bags, loaded it into a shopping cart, and brought it to the defendant’s apartment.

At approximately 2:17 a.m., on Sept. 30, 2017, according to the evidence, the defendant used the victim’s cellphone to send a text to the victim’s boss stating that Rivera was quitting because he found a new job.

Later that morning, at approximately 6:30 a.m., the defendant was captured on surveillance video wheeling the shopping cart with the victim’s body out of his apartment and down the block to his grandmother’s home at 54 Himrod Street, where he buried the body.

On Oct. 5, 2017, the New York City Police Department received an anonymous tip that there was a dead body buried in the backyard at 54 Himrod Street. The next day, detectives found Rivera’s body buried in a shallow grave. The victim was wrapped in plastic trash bags and had a clear plastic garbage wrapped tightly around his head and neck. The New York City Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy and ruled the cause of death was homicidal asphyxia.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Robert J. Walsh, Chief of the District Attorney’s Grey Zone Trial Bureau, and Senior Assistant District Attorney Sanam Shah, also of the Grey Zone.