Marblehead man may face 2nd slay rap

SALEM – A judge ordered Peter Ronchi held without bail after Ronchi pleaded innocent Wednesday to stabbing his girlfriend to death last weekend.Assistant District Attorney Jean Curran said Yuliya Galperina’s 3-year-old daughter and 8-year-old son awoke last Sunday in their Salem Heights apartment building to find their mother “stabbed on the floor. They roamed the halls in search of help,” Curran told the court.The children were asleep at the time of the murder. Ronchi is not their father.Curran said Ronchi, 45, stabbed Galperina “numerous times” with a hunting knife, killing the 42-year-old and their unborn child. Initial reports on the murder quoted Ronchi as stating he killed Galperina because she told him the child was not his, but Curran said Ronchi is the father and he stands to face an additional murder charge.”It is the commonwealth’s position that the child would have been viable,” Curran said.Curran said Ronchi washed his hands in Galperina’s apartment after killing her and changed clothes before going to his 10 Taft St., Marblehead apartment. He then drove to Norwalk, Conn., where he ran out of gas.He told police he bought a bicycle at a local Wal-Mart and rode five miles to a police station where he turned himself in.”He had been in contact with Connecticut police and had, in fact, said he may have killed his girlfriend,” Curran said.A woman who identified herself as an aunt of Galperina’s 3-year-old daughter, Marina, clapped in the courtroom as Judge Richard Mori ordered Ronchi held without bail until June 15.The woman, who declined to identify herself, said Galperina stopped working at the Jewish Rehabilitation Center in Swampscott recently to care for Marina who, she said, received medical treatment at a Brookline facility.”She spent so much on her medical bills,” the aunt said.She said Galperina is scheduled to be buried Thursday in New York. She did not say specifically where but said Galperina moved to New York from the Ukraine before relocating to Wisconsin. Galperina moved five years ago to Massachusetts, the woman said, hoping to improve her son Mark’s respiratory health.The aunt said Galperina has an older daughter who lives in New York.Although she saw Galperina three weeks ago, the aunt did not know Galperina was involved with Ronchi.Ronchi worked as a masseuse at Julie Spreadbury Associates in Lynn until roughly a month ago when he left the job on “amicable terms,” Spreadbury said.