A landlord was arrested and charged with murdering his tenants on Tuesday after three people were found stabbed to death in the bedrooms of a Queens home.
The man, David Daniel, 54, turned himself in at a police station Tuesday morning and confessed, said Joseph Kenny, the New York City Police Department’s chief of detectives. Mr. Daniel told the police that two of the victims were his tenants and that they had not paid the rent. The third victim was Mr. Daniel’s girlfriend, the police said.
Officers arrived at the home, in the St. Albans neighborhood, just after 7 a.m., where they found two of the victims in a bedroom in the basement and the third in a bedroom upstairs, the police said. Officers found a knife at the scene.
Mr. Daniel was “very matter-of-fact” when he approached officers at the precinct, Chief Kenny said. He was charged with murder and is in custody
The light-green house where the killings took place is on a dead-end street in a quiet neighborhood of single and multifamily homes. On Tuesday afternoon, neighbors kept their blinds closed and curtains shut.
Shortly after 1:30 p.m., officials wearing protective suits began removing body bags from the home and loading them into a van.
Alfred Felder, 32, lives in the neighborhood and said he was shocked to hear about the stabbings. He said he hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary on Monday night or early Tuesday morning.
“It hurts to see something like that, especially so close,” Mr. Felder said. He added that he was “glad it was an isolated event, but at the same time, you never want anything like that to happen.”
Mr. Felder said he had seen the house’s inhabitants around the neighborhood and would never have thought that anything was amiss.
Nelimi Roopnarine, 42, who also lives nearby, said she heard sirens Tuesday morning. It was “very shocking to wake up to something like that,” she said.
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
