The Murder Book 2008

July 16th -- 4 dead, including couple shot to death in their Marine Park home...

Mark Schwartz, a 50-year-old white male, and his wife Christine Petrowski-Schwartz, a 48-year-old white female, were found shot to death in their bedroom in Marine Park, Brooklyn early Wednesday, according to a story in the Daily News. (photo Daily News)

The bodies of the well-liked couple -- both of whom were lawyers -- were found by their cleaning lady on the second floor of their home on East 33rd Street in Brooklyn after the woman had already cleaned the ground floor. She reportedly ran out of the house and called 911. According to the News story, the cleaning woman yelled: "They're dead - they're both dead."

A neighbor told the News: "Why would anyone want to do this to them? They're such good people, very loving people."

The investigation is at an early stage and there was no motive for why the couple was shot.

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An unidentified 19-year-old Russian immigrant was beaten to death with a cue stick early in a Brooklyn pool hall Tuesday morning after he reportedly got into an argument with a group of men, according to a story in the Daily News.  

The murder occurred at Boardwalk Billiards in the Brighton Beach section of the borough. The victim was taken to Lutheran Medical Center in critical condition, and died shortly after. No arrests.

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Mustafa Oumaria, a 23-year-old Nigerian immigrant, was shot to death Tuesday night outside his home on Albany Avenue in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, according to a brief in the Daily News.

Oumaria was shot four times by a lone gunman who has not been captured.  The News reported that Oumaria worked in a clothing store, and was single and quiet.

June 21st -- 3 dead, including child starved to death....

Matthew Mason, a 7-week-old white baby boy, died last March from complications brought on by starvation, and his parents were charged Friday with manslaughter, according to stories in the Daily News and Staten Island Advance.

Matthew's parents, Joanne Fezza, 42, and Peter Mason, 46, (S.I. Advance photo) yesterday were arraigned on manslaughter, and held on $500,000 bail each after an autopsy revealed that they'd allegedly starved their baby son to death. Matthew weighed less than two pounds when he was taken from his family's home on March 23rd.

The couple also faces charges of child endangerment for allegedly failing to provide for their 5-year-old son who was taken away by the Administration for Children's Services on Friday.

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Olga Rodriguez, a 49-year-old Latina female, was found stabbed to death Friday in her apartment at 715 Eagle Avenue in the Bronx, according to a police report and media reports. The building superintendent, who went to her apartment to pick up the rent, apparently found her and called police. She had multiple stab wounds to her body, and was pronounced dead on arrival by responding EMS workers. No arrests.

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Dorrian Sweeney, a 20-year-old black male, died early last week from a stab wound he received back on June 11th in front of 88-40 173rd Street, according to a police report. Sweeney survived for a couple of days at Mary Immaculate Hospital but died on June 13th. Police arrested Aerris Grant, 28, of Queens, and charged him with Sweeney's murder.

 

June 3rd -- 1 dead & family of Chelsea murderer speaks out...

Joseph Cesario, a 66-year-old white male, was struck and killed by an alleged drunk driver Sunday in the New Springfield section of Staten Island, according to a brief in the NY Post and a story in the Staten Island Advance.

Andrew Douglas, the 29-year-old driver of the of the 2008 BMW that struck Cesario, stopped at the scene where police allegedly found him with bloodshot eyes and alcohol on his breath, sources told the Post. He was arrested and charged with second degree manslaughter and driving while intoxicated.  

Neighbors said Cesario was a kindly butcher who had just moved to the borough from Queens about a year earlier. He died at Staten Island University Hospital North from massive internal injuries, according to the stories.

A neighbor of Cesario's told the Advance: "You had to be going pretty damn fast not to see a person."

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The family of Jonathan Smith, who killed his longtime girlfriend Margaux Powers in their Chelsea apartment before taking his own life, released a statement to the Daily News yesterday expressing sorrow for what their son had done.

Jonathan's brother Baldwin told the News: "Our deepest sorrow goes out to the Powers family; [we] just feel terrible for them."

The Smith and Powers families were especially close and grew up in the same tony circles on Long Island. "W're doing our best," said Baldwin. "They have a wonderful family and she was a wonderful girl."

The Post weighed in with a story that claimed that Smith, until recently a chef at Cafe Society, was fired for being chronically drunk and degrading to his female co-workers. An old friend is also quoted as saying Smith was a good guy who must have snapped.

Reportedly, Powers was fed up with Smith's drinking and mood swings and had told him she was breaking up with him and asked him to move out just before she was murdered. Her sister later found her body in the apartment bathtub.

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Meanwhile, the Daily News has a story in which Rev. Al Shapton calls for a high-profile community summit to address black-on-black violence. Sharpton told the News: "Shootings and violence within our community by one of our own is an outrage and an issue that we must confront as diligently and as passionately as a sensational case of police misconduct or brutality."

According to my statistics, blacks represent at least half of the murder victims in the city this year even though they are only about one-quarter of the city's overall population.

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Please watch a new episode of "48 Hours Mystery" on CBS TONIGHT at 9 p.m. eastern time...produced by me!! Read the great review in today's NY Post -- 3 out of 4 stars!!

June 1st -- 3 dead...young woman found dismembered in Chelsea bathtub...

Margaux Powers, a 26-year-old white female (photo left with her father Michael), was found dismembered in her Chelsea apartment bathtub Saturday night, just hours before her boyfriend -- Jonathan Smith, 34 -- apparently jumped to his death from a building in lower Manhattan, according to a story in the Daily News.

Powers' sister and family members became concerned they could not reach Margaux for several days and eventually went to her apartment at 235 W. 22nd St. where they made the discovery and also, according to the News, found an unsigned apologetic suicide note. Powers' body was discovered by her horrified sister Dana when she pulled back the shower curtain. A building doorman told the News that Powers and her boyfriend fought all the time.

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Carlos Rios, a 47-year-old Latino male, was shot to death by an off-duty police police officer in the Bronx late Saturday night after Rios apparently accosted the officer's wife and 3-year-old daughter in an apartment elevator, according to an Associated Press story.

Reportedly, Rios showed the woman and girl a gun as he got into the elevator. She screamed and her husband, the off-duty cop, came to their aid. The attacker was shot but still managed to run from the building but was caught a short distance away. He died soon after.

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Liu Mei Liang, an 85-year-old Asian female, was reportedly killed in an attack last week by a former correction officer who body-slammed the grandmother to the ground while she was doing Tai Chi exercises in Chinatown, according to a story in the NY Post.

Gary Brown, 27, apparently was drunk when he said he accidentally bumped into Liang in the playground of PS 134 on East Broadway and knocked her down, according to the story. Witnesses came forward to say they saw Brown pick her up and slam the woman to the ground, cops said. Liang died two days later at Bellevue Hospital and Brown was charged with her murder, according to the Post story.

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The May Report on the number of homicides this past month will be posted later in the day.

 

 

May 31st -- 1 dead and body in car identified...

An unidentified 30-year-old white male was found with a gunshot wound to the head on Friday night in front of 919 East 10th Street in Brooklyn, according to the police. He was taken to Maimomides Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. No arrests.

UPDATE: The victim was later identified as Michael Rizzo who lived in New Jersey and worked at Coney Island. He was found in the street by an Orthodox Jew who, despite it being the Sabbath, flagged down others to call the police.

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The man found wrapped in a blanket inside an SUV last Wednesday has been identified as Jermaine Williams, a 35-year-old black male who once worked as a bodyguard for gangsta rapper Busta Rhymes. Williams had been shot in the head, wrapped in a blanket, and placed in the back of his Lincoln Navigator truck in front of 132-39 79th Street in Queens, according to a story in the NY Post. 

The Post reports that Williams has a long criminal record that includes drug charges; sources told the Post that Williams had not worked for Rhymes for at least eight years.

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May 22nd -- 1 dead, Staten Island liquor store owner...

Elgudzha Koyenishvili, a 67-year-old Russian immigrant, was shot to death last night by a thief who robbed Koyenishvili's liquor store of its cash register, according to a brief in the Daily News and a story in the Staten Island Advance.

The murder happened just after 8 p.m. when the gunman ran into the store -- Discount Wines & Liquors at 118 Lincoln Avenue -- shot Koyenishvili, grabbed the store register, and ran off. Witnesses say he later jumped into a blue truck parked nearby, according to the Advance story. The gunman was described as a white man, 5 feet, 7 inches tall, and wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

An eyewitness told the Advance: "I saw the guy pacing in the street, and he just kept watching the store. Finally, he just ran in."

It was the second murder of an immigrant running a small business in the past week. Last Thursday, Kyung-Sook Woo, a 63-year-old Asian female, was shot to death in her dry cleaning business in the Windsor Terrace section of Brooklyn. An arrest was made in that case.

May 13th -- 3 dead, including mom killed in front of baby boy...

Aisha Bristol, a 27-year-old black woman, was murdered yesterday as she strapped her 1-year-old baby son into his car seat at the corner of Hart Street and Lewis Avenue in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, according to stories in the Daily News, Post, and NY Times.

Bristol was slashed across the throat, allegedly by her personal trainer who reportedly later called the police and confessed, according to the newspapers. The two had met at a gym about a year ago and had a troubled relationship, according to those who knew them. Bristol worked for the Transportation Security Administration, and was also a student at Medgar Evans College.

Her brother had been shot in the head and killed three years ago in Washinton DC, prompting her uncle to tell The News: "This is horrible."

UPDATE: Percy Bailey, 46, of Queens, was charged with Bristol's murder. He was listed in stable condition at Jamaica Hospital where he was taken after swallowing poison while making a 911 call allegedly confessing to the murder.

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Louis Antonelli, a 43-year-old white male, died over the weekend after he was shot twice in the chest last month in what appeared to be a jewelry store robbed. Police now believe Antonelli was the target of an ambush ordered by organized crime, according to a story in the NY Post.

Antonelli had been on a respirator and reportedly never was able to talk about the April 29 shooting. At the time, he had just removed $260,000 worth of gems from a storage area and was placing them in his SUV when he was attacked by two men wearing gray hoodies. The shooters did not touch any of the jewelry or the cash in his wallet.

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Andre Lewis, a 22-year-old black male, died yesterday at Mary Immaculate Hospital from stab wounds he suffered over the weekend, according to a brief in the Daily News. James McGee, 20, was charged with manslaughter in the stabbing that occurred Saturday in South Jamaica, Queens.

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April 24th -- 2 dead & hunt for correction officer's killer....

An unidentified 58-year-old white male was stabbed numerous times in the chest Wednesday evening in front of 1350 Ogden Avenue in the Bronx, and police later arrested the man's roommate, Michael Wells, 32, and charged him with murder after the victim died at Lincoln Hospital.

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Raheem Frizzel, a 30-year-old black male, was found shot in the head Thursday afternoon in the fourth floor hallway of 1558 Bryant Avenue in the Bronx. No arrests.

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Meanwhile, police released this sketch of a man believed to be the gunman who shot and killed off-duty Correction Officer Kenneth Duncan while he and a friend were tinkering with his beloved motorcycle at Duncan's home in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Duncan, who was a 17-year-veteran, left behind two teenage children and his mother who revealed yesterday that another son was murdered back in 1994, according to story in the Daily News.

Sheila Duncan-Quinton told The News: "Right now, we're all just grieving - hurting and grieving inside. He was a loving son, a person that helped anybody no matter who they are. Why? There has to be a better reason to just kill a person."

April 19th -- 2 dead...

Philip Realmuto, a 25-year-old white male, was found dead of stab wounds outside his car at Avenue C and McDonald Avenue in the Kensington section of Brooklyn, according to a brief story in the NY Post. Realmuto's death was not immediately reported as a homicide when it occurred at 10:15 p.m. Thursday because passersby first thought he'd been struck by a passing car.

Further investigation revealed that Realmuto had been stabbed three times in the torso, and managed to get out of his car before collapsing in the street. No arrests.

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An unidentified 38-year-old black male was found shot to death at 352 Remsen Avenue in Brooklyn, police said. A second victim, an unidentified 28-year-old black male was found shot once in the leg at the same location and was to Kings County Hospital where he was reported in stable condition. No arrests.

April 14th -- 1 dead, Massachusetts woman found shot in car with toddler...

Chelsea Frazier, an 18-year-old white female from Southbridge, Massachusetts, died yesterday of gunshot wounds she received in an apparent robbery in the Bronx, according to the police.

Frazier and Carlos Cruz, the father of Alijah, a 1-year-old toddler who was in the car at the time of the shooting but was unharmed, were found on the street outside their Toyota at the intersection of Torry and Barrett Avenues in the remote Clason Point section of the Bronx. (Aside: I grew up nearby and no one pulls off a highway and winds up there. The nearest highway is about one mile away.)

It is unclear why the couple were in the Bronx neighborhood but Cruz initially said they had gone shopping, got lost, and were targeted by a man who snatched Cruz' gold necklace. Relatives of Frazier immediately expressed skepticism about his story, saying Cruz had recently threatened Frazier and wanted to get the child away from her, according to news reports.

Frazier, who was in the driver's seat, was shot twice in the torso, and Cruz was hit in the leg. He is recovering from his injury at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx. Frazier was pronounced dead on arrival at the same hospital. She was said to be from Southbridge, Massachusetts. No arrests. On Monday, Frazier was on her way to NYC to pick up her grandchildren.

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