The Murder Book

Not only is crime down in NYC, so is 'crazy crime...."

Yep, there's no doubt that NYC in 2010 is a much cheerier place than it was in the bad old days of the late '70s and early '80s. The murder rate has dropped from 2,200 homicides a year to under 500. And major crime is also down in every category, including 'crazy crime,' a category in which NYC was once the unabashed leader.

'Crazy crime' is my own term, and it refers to a crime so off the charts, that it makes you say, "That's crazy." It can be brutal or just plain stupid, murder or not, but it attracts your attention for how odd it is. The Son of Sam case (photo left: David Berkowitz) is the perfect example: a serial killer roaming the streets looking for couples kissing in cars and then just opening fire without saying a word.

It's not that I miss the old days but I can't help but recall a very different NYC. Strangers would push strangers off subway platforms, stab them in the back as they walked down the street, hit them in the head with bricks. Someone even killed a violinist at the Met -- during intermission! These days, Google "Murder at the Met" and you learn of a scavenger hunt by the same name. It's a very different and more civilized city than in once was imo.

Remember, for instance, when women were afraid to walk down the streets of midtown for fear of being pricked by some crazy guy with a hypodermic needle? Those things don't happen anymore. With the plummet in sheer numbers of crime, crazy crime is also way down. The last crime I can remember that falls into this category is that mentally ill guy in 2008 who stabbed a shrink to death on the upper East Side, a psychotherapist who was just sitting in her office. The guy even killed the wrong shrink so that is truly 'crazy.'

It's not that I long for those crazy old days but I think about them from time to time. I guess you can take the reporter out of the tabloid but not the tabloid out of the reporter, huh?

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Number of murders in NYC for 2009 will be lowest total ever...

NYC Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg were positively giddy today and with good reason -- the number of homicide victims in NYC in 2009 will be the lowest ever, or at least since accurate records were kept. So far this year -- with days to go -- the number of murders in NYC is 461. In 2007, the previous low year, that number stood at 496.

The city has experienced an astonishing drop in the number of murders from the high of 2,245 in 1990.

The victims this year were overwhelmingly men between the ages of 18 and 40. Across the board, serious crime in NYC -- rapes, robberies, theft -- are down 11 percent. 

The drop in the murder rate is a national trend and was down in many major American cities in the first half of 2009.

Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly, who made the announcement at a police graduation at the Beacon theater, attributed the success to doing more with less. You can read the entire NY Times story on today's announcement here. 

Murders are down in NYC but so are the number solved...

There have been only 399 murders so far in NYC this year compared with 452 homicides last year, a drop of more than 11 percent. If the trend continues, this could be the fewest number of homicides recorded in NYC since the birth of accurate statistics. But according to an article in The Daily News, the number of murders considered solved continues to hover around 50 percent despite the drop in overall numbers.

According to the News story:

The reason, police sources say, is manpower. They say the department is increasingly stretched thin because of terrorism concerns and that a smaller force means less gets done. Indeed, the nation's largest police department has about 35,000 members, down some 5,000 from 2001. There are also fewer detectives - 5,500, compared to 7,000 in 2001. "To me, this is all because the squads are smaller," said a veteran Queens detective.

Two years ago, the percentage of solved homicides was around 70 percent and ten years ago, it was 92 percent. Still, there's no denying the continued plunge of homicides and crime in general in the city, making it a much more civilized place to live.

Two high-profile murders do not inspire confidence in men....

The murders of Yale student Annie Le in New Haven and Essex House resident Andree Bejjani (photo) in New York are especially troubling because both women were murdered in places where they probably felt completely safe. In fact, it would be hard to find more secure locations than where these two women were murdered.

Le was strangled in a secure lab building on the campus of Yale University that required a key card, not only to get into the building but to get into locations within the building! It did her no good -- her body was located behind a wall in a storage area on what should have been her wedding day.

Bejjani, president of a real estate investment group with roots in Dubai, was strangled inside her extremely high-priced condominium unit on Central Park South, more or less the Gold Coast of NYC. Her body was found in her bedroom with a rope around her neck and a bread knife sticking out of the back of her neck. 

There have been arrests in both cases and police say the killers of these two women were men who the women had probably seen nearly every day. In Le's case, her murderer allegedly is Raymond Clark III, a lab tech who interacted with her frequently over the care of mice she used in her experiments. In Bejjani's case, her killer allegedly is Derrick Praileau, a housekeeping manager who worked in the Essex House for 12 years.

No one knows if these men are guilty or why they might have committed these crimes but sex and violence seem to be at the heart of the two cases. Le was killed apparently because she treated Clark with disrespect over the treatment of the mice in his care. Bejjani appears to be the victim of a sexual assault that she resisted. 

Neither Clark nor Praileau had criminal records. Both were veteran employees with more or less unblemished records. All they have in common are that they're both men. The murders appear to have been completely unavoidable unless of course, the women just avoided men. 

Naked woman stabbed to death in Central Park South condo...building employee in custody....

The naked body of a young female resident of a high-end condominium in the Essex House on Central Park South was found in her bedroom with a knife sticking out of her neck Saturday afternoon, according to police. (photo Daily News)

By Sunday morning, the NY Post reported that a building employee was in custody and being questioned about the murder.

The dead woman was identified by police as Andree (Sara) Bejjani, said to be in her 30s. Bejjani was the president of a real estate investment group based in Dubai. 

The hotel and condominium has tight security as I know first-hand. I was recently stopped by a security guard in the middle of the day on my way up to a business meeting. Partly because of that security, attention was immediately focused on hotel employees.

The Post reported in Sunday's editions that police have arrested Derrick Praileau, a housekeeping manager who allegedly incriminated himself.He has not been charged but the Post claimed that there is a video of him entering Bjjani's apartment. 

A string of high-profile celebrities -- including Angelina Jolie and Jude Law -- have been known to stay at the hotel.

Did suspect in case of Yale student strangled drop his pen?

Some of the best reporting on the story about Annie Le, the Yale student strangled and found dead on what should have been her wedding night, is coming from Michael Daly, the NY Daily News columnist with close ties to the school.

In today's column, Daly has far more detail on where the DNA evidence against suspect Raymond Clark (photo) was found, writing that Le's blood allegedly was found on his boots with his name on them!

Daly also writes that Clark apparently dropped a signature green pen in the wall space where he allegedly stuffed Le's body after strangling her. Supposedly, Clark, a lab tech who interacted with Le, signed his name with the green pen every day he reported for duty.

Clark has been arrested for Le's murder and is being held on $3 million bail.

Arrest made in case of Yale student strangled....

No surprise, police announced this morning that they have arrested Raymond Clark, a Yale University lab technician, and charged him with the murder of Annie Le, the Yale student whose body was found stuffed in a wall storage area on what would have been her wedding night. (photo is Annie with fiance)

Police took Clark into custody earlier in the week and executed a search warrant that included the collection of his DNA. Now, cops say that DNA matches material found on Annie Le's lifeless body. Clark was allowed to leave after his DNA was collected but police kept him under surveillance.

This morning, he was arrested without incident and ordered held on $3 million bail. The full story is on Crimesider.com.

"Person of Interest" picked up in Yale student's murder....

A lab tech who worked in the same campus building where Yale student Annie Le was found murdered was picked up by cops last night after they executed a search warrant for DNA and other items. 

The police raided the apartment of Raymond Clark 3rd (photo) and took him into custody to acquire DNA, according to the blog Crimesider and several published reports. He has not been arrested.

Clark and Le reportedly had exchanged emails about protocols involving lab mice that were housed in the building, according to Daily News columnist Mike Daly. Le, whose body was found stuffed into a wall storage area on what was to have been her wedding day, apparently was conciliatory toward Clark after he challenged her about the mice, Daly reported.

Clark reportedly has failed a lie detector test and has scratch marks on his chest, according to published reports. Now police hope to test whether or not his DNA is found on Le's body.

Yale student's murder should be solved soon....

Now that we know Annie Le, the Yale student whose body was discovered on what would have been her wedding, is in fact a murder victim, I'm predicting that it will not be long before police have a suspect in custody.

I say this because her body was discovered in a Yale building that was ringed with video cameras and it's really only a matter of time before police are questioning suspects who came and went during key moments. What's more, the Yale building where her body was discovered was a locked-down building and, I don't know this for a fact but I suspect that, like most such buildings, it required a card key for entrance. Again, police will know who was there and when.

Finally, there is human nature itself. Whoever committed this horrible crime is surely feeling a lot of pressure right now and once police begin questioning him, his cover story will begin to fall apart. 

Given where Annie's body was found -- in a wall where cables were stored -- everything points to the killer being a worker and not a student.

We'll see but I don't believe it will be long before someone is arrested. With video cameras and cell phones that are the equivalent of tracking devices, it is harder and harder to commit a murder and not get caught. It is a lesson learned by Philip Markoff, the second-year medical student accused of being the Craigslist Killer whose image was captured at the three hotels where the attacks occurred.

UPDATE: Within hours of writing this post, the NY Daily News ran a story about police questioning a suspect who reportedly has failed a lie detector test and has scratches on his chest.

The Craigslist Killer exposed....

As we begin September, there will soon be a lot more information revealed about the notorious Craigslist Killer case that claimed the life of New York model and masseuse Julissa Brisman. Vanity Fair writer Maureen Orth gets the news rolling with a piece in the new issue of the magazine that hits the stands Wednesday. That is just the warmup to my own book "Seven Days of Rage" about the Craigslist Killer case that will be published September 15th.

My book, co-written with Boston Globe police reporter Maria Cramer, will examine the very dark side of Philip Markoff, the accused Craigslist Killer. The revelations will surprise and shock you.

But we should never forget the killer's victims, especially Julissa Brisman, a vivacious New York City woman who lost her life to the killer. In one new revelation, Djuna Perkins, lawyer for Julissa's family, described the way Julissa's mother and sister heard the news that Julissa was dead. The Boston Police had found Julissa's cell phone and were searching for a way to inform the family what had happened.

They found the entry that read "Moms Cell" and called the number at 2:30 in the morning, according to Perkins. Sure enough, Julissa's mother answered but because she only speaks Spanish, and the police officer only spoke English, Carmen handed the phone to Melissa, Julissa's teenaged sister.

"When she answered, a police officer told her, 'This is the Boston Police Department. Julissa Brisman is dead,'" Perkins said.

That is how the family's nightmare began.