Amateur Plastic Surgery Kills Bronx Mom

After a prolonged autopsy, a Bronx medical examiner has concluded that the death of a 43-year-old mother of two was a homicide, the result of botched plastic surgery. On March 17th, Siordaliza Pichardo checked herself a Bronx hospital, complaining of dizziness and difficulty breathing; she later went into cardiac arrest and expired during the night. One day earlier, Pichardo had received silicone injections from a friend of hers who, according to investigators, is a "nonmedical, unlicensed person." After extensive tests, the ME determined the cause of death to be "silicone pulmonary embolism," and found that Pichardo had silicone clotting in her lungs. Her 21-year-old son Kelvin Rodriguez tells Newsday that his mother had gotten the silicon injections because she wanted to add shape to her thighs and buttocks; he says he was "strongly opposed that my mom was doing this because she didn't need it."