NEW YORK — The knife-wielding attacker who stabbed an elderly man to death during a 90-minute spree of violence lives in the same apartment building as the octogenarian victim, police believe.
Authorities on Sunday released the name and mugshot of the suspect they are hunting for in the string of unprovoked Saturday attacks that ended with 83-year-old Ramon Cintron knifed to death in an elevator in the Wyckoff Gardens complex.
Joevani Vale, 26, was identified as the suspect in a woman’s slashing in Boerum Hill Saturday afternoon — and police sources say he’s likely also the culprit in the fatal stabbing in the Wyckoff Gardens complex less than three blocks away.
Vale and the victim both live in the New York City Housing Authority building where the fatal knifing took place, neighbors confirmed, and police were stationed outside the door of Vale’s fourth-floor apartment Sunday.
“I’ve seem him walking the streets since I been living here,” neighbor Untra Taylor, 58, said of the suspect. “Last time I saw him was like last month on Fourth Avenue and Bergen. I was going to the train station. He looked off, kind of crazy. ... He didn’t seem right.”
Police believe Vale first struck about 12:50 p.m. Saturday when he punched a 47-year-old woman in the shoulder on Pacific Street and Third Avenue.
About 40 minutes later he slashed a 31-year-old woman in her right thigh on Nevins Street near Dean Street, according to police. Medics took that victim to Methodist Hospital in stable condition.
Police found Cintron dead in an elevator at Wyckoff Gardens on Nevins Street near Baltic Street about 2:20 p.m. He had been stabbed multiple times in the neck and right arm.
“That was my brother” said distraught sibling Angel Cintron, who was bewildered why anyone would target his brother. “I’m very sorry I really don’t know. Detectives haven’t told me much of what happened.”
One of Cintron’s downstairs neighbors, who didn’t give her name, described the victim as a kind mainstay in the building for about four decades.
“He’s a quiet man. He liked to go outside, he liked to go to the store. Just a nice old man,” she said. “I was so hurt hearing about this. I don’t know why this happened to him. ... He didn’t deserve that.”
Vale has three past arrests on his record, police sources said — a September 2020 assault bust, a February 2016 arrest for forcible touching and a September 2015 arrest for public lewdness.
Cintron’s neighbor was shocked to see Vale’s face on a wanted poster.
“Oh my God, he did this? He lived on the fourth floor. I can’t believe it,” she said. “I don’t talk to him but every time I see him he has a hoodie on. I don’t know why he would do that, he’s a quiet kid. ... He’s like shy, he would just say ‘Hi.’ He doesn’t smile or nothing.”
Police are asking the public’s help tracking Vale down. On Saturday, before the suspect’s identity was known, police released surveillance footage of him taken near one of the crime scenes.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
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