Juan L. Diaz is arraigned on a murder charge yesterday.

Journal / Steve Szydlowski

PROVIDENCE –– The man alleged to have fatally shot Mayra Cruz in Pawtucket two weeks ago was arraigned on three separate criminal complaints yesterday, each charting the tide of violence that led to Cruz’s death.

Juan L. Diaz, 24, was charged in one complaint with breaking and entering, felony assault, misdemeanor assault, disorderly conduct and preventing Cruz, 26, from using the telephone during a break-in at her apartment at Galego Court, a public housing project in Pawtucket, on Jan. 21.

He was charged in another complaint with misdemeanor assault, vandalism and violation of a no-contact order involving Cruz a month later, on Feb. 21.

Finally, Diaz, who gave his address as 14 Reservoir Ave., Pawtucket, was charged with murdering Cruz in his basement apartment on June 25.

A Pawtucket police report describes Diaz as Cruz’s ex-boyfriend and says that on Jan., 24, when he was arrested for the first assault, he was driving a car belonging to her sister, Tanairi Roman, 22.

Roman told the police she had let her mother borrow the car and didn’t know what Cruz was doing with it when he crashed the car on School Street in Pawtucket, then tried to leave the scene.

Diaz was released on personal recognizance following his arraignment in District Court for the first assault. He never appeared in District Court for an arraignment on the complaint charging him with the second assault, Assistant Attorney General Maureen Keough said. A warrant was issued for his arrest.

Diaz also failed to appear in Superior Court for what was to have been his arraignment on the felony charges arising from the first assault, during which he is accused of choking Cruz and ripping the telephone from her apartment wall. Another arrest warrant was issued on June 12.

Less than two weeks later, Cruz was killed with a single gunshot wound to the head. Diaz fled to Albany, N.Y., where he was picked up June 26 on a third warrant, this one charging him with her murder.

Cruz was buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Pawtucket last week. She is survived by her 6-year-old daughter, Aixa Marie Cruz; her husband, Jorge L. Cruz; her brother, Miguel Roman; her sisters, Melissa and Tanairi Roman; her father, Miguel Angel Roman and her mother, Miriam Youssef.

Accompanied by friends and family members, Youssef, 44, spent hours waiting for Diaz to appear in court yesterday. Wearing a T-shirt with a picture of Mayra Cruz, she declined to talk to a reporter about her daughter’s murder, but wept quietly when Diaz was arraigned.

Diaz, a solidly built man with a neatly trimmed beard and mustache, seemed distraught, appearing to tear up, when he was arraigned before District Court Magistrate Joseph Ippolito. He appeared composed when he was arraigned, an hour later, before Magistrate William J. McAtee in Superior Court.

No plea was entered at either arraignment. A bail hearing was scheduled for July 21. In the meantime, Diaz was ordered held at the Adult Correctional Institutions in Cranston.

The police are investigating how Cruz came to be in Diaz’s apartment the night she was murdered. Her car, a red subcompact with a shattered passenger-side window, was seized as evidence in the case.

jcastell@projo.com