(NEW YORK) — New York City police are searching for the suspect who killed a 77-year-old man and a 78-year-old woman by stabbing them and setting them on fire in their Queens home, likely while searching for property to steal, sources said.
Neighbors reported a man knocking on doors on Monday, asking to charge a cell phone, with at least one neighbor turning the man away before he approached the victim’s house, the sources told ABC News.
Detectives believe they have identified the suspect, who has an extensive criminal record and was released from prison in 2023, sources said.
Surveillance video showed the suspect knocking on the victims’ back door and the 77-year-old victim opening it and letting him in around 10:15 a.m., according to sources.
Detectives believe the suspect spent five hours in the victims’ house, according to sources, likely searching for property to steal before setting it ablaze.
Surveillance video also showed the suspect leaving the home at 3:08 p.m., shortly before the house went up in flames, sources said.
Neighbors called the victim’s son, a New York City Fire Department paramedic who was off duty at the time of the fire, who rushed home to discover his parents dead, sources said.
The fire department responded to the location and put the fire out, the New York Police Department said in a statement. EMS pronounced both victims deceased at the scene.
The woman was found lying on the first floor and accelerant appeared to have been poured on her body, starting the fire, sources said.
The man was found in the basement where he was tied with bungee cords to a column supporting the house, sources said. He was also set on fire but that fire appeared to have extinguished itself, sources said.
The suspect is described as a male, with a dark complexion, approximately 30 to 40 years of age, medium build, and was last seen wearing a black hat, a black jacket, blue jeans, and black sneakers, according to the NYPD.
Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X @NYPDTips.
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