A mentally ill man has been ordered held without bail, accused of a brutal stabbing spree aboard a New York City subway train as he traveled between Manhattan and Queens, leaving two dead and two wounded over Valentine’s Day weekend.
Rigoberto Lopez, 21, faces a count each of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder in a series of separate attacks along the the city’s longest subway line. Police said Lopez committed the crimes as he made a full 14-hour loop of the city aboard the A train.
He was arrested Saturday in Washington Heights and had his first appearance Monday in Manhattan Criminal Court, where Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson presented the charges and described the crime. Each victim was homeless and had been using the subway system for shelter, reports said.
Judge Barbara Jaffe ordered Lopez held and also that he be given medical attention.
The man once spent time in a hospital psychiatric ward, the New York Daily News reported.
The first attack happened in Hudson Heights about 11:20 a.m. Friday. In that incident, 67-year-old Carlos Martinez was stabbed in the right knee and left buttocks as he sat inside a station at 181st Street and Fort Washington Avenue. The victim remains in serious-but-stable condition at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia, reports said.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
A little more than 12 hours later, the second victim was found stabbed to death inside a subway car parked at the Mott Avenue-Far Rockaway station in Queens. Police have not released the name of that person.
The third victim turned up about an hour and a half later. Claudine Roberts, 44, was found stabbed to death, her body lying underneath a seat aboard a train sitting at the Inwood and 207th Street station, reports said. In court, the prosecutor said the victim was found “in a pool of blood.”
Reports said the city was gripped with fear as police launched a dragnet for the suspect that included hundreds of officers.
Prosecutors said the fourth and final victim had been sleeping on a stairwell at 181st Street about 1:30 a.m. Friday when the attacker struck again.
“The defendant took out the same knife he had used in the other incidents and stabbed this man in the back,” the prosecutor said.
The man survived but remains in serious-but-stable condition at a local hospital.
Lopez was arrested with a knife about six hours later at West 186th Street and Audubon Avenue in Washington Heights. He was taken to the 34th Precinct wearing the same clothing he was seen in on surveillance video viewed by cops, Peterson said.
“At that time, the defendant admitted to all four of these incidents,” Peterson said. “He also indicated that the knife in his possession was the murder weapon.”
Information provided by Tribune News Service was used to compile this report.
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