A Bronx mother’s gruesome stabbing in an apartment hallway has traumatized a number of the woman’s neighbors who say they witnessed the woman’s dying breaths.
Mercy Capacette, 29, was stabbed to death at her New York City apartment building on Monday, local television station WPIX reported. Her boyfriend Jeancarlo Jimenez, 29, has been arrested and charged with murder.
The stabbing allegedly unfolded around 7:30 p.m. Monday at Capecette’s fifth-floor apartment in the Bronx. The young mother apparently managed to escape the initial attack but was chased by her assailant to the hallway of the building’s fourth floor where Jimenez allegedly continued stabbing her, according to local reports.
“There was so much blood,” one neighbor told the New York Daily News.
“He was just stabbing and stabbing,” another neighbor, who didn’t give his name to reporters, told the newspaper. “I saw when he stabbed her. Someone said to turn her over, but I could tell she wasn’t breathing. She was already gone.”
Other building residents said they haven’t been able to sleep at night following Capacette’s death.
“I started screaming, crying,” Evelyn Rosario, another neighbor, told the Daily News. “I haven’t slept. I couldn’t even make it to work today.”
About 20 minutes before Capacette’s slaying, Jimenez allegedly attacked his 60-year-old father and 34-year-old brother at his his family home on Gleason Avenue in the Bronx. The two men are expected to survive, local media reported. The residence is located about half a mile from Capacette’s apartment.
Neighbors at Jimenez’s family’s apartment described the terrifying moments after a shirtless Jimenez allegedly stabbed his own family members.
“‘My husband and son are dead!’” Jimenez’s mother screamed, the next door neighbor Manuel Cardenas recalled to the the Daily News. “He was walking down the street like nothing happened. The mother was yellingHelp me, help me, please help me!’”
Cardenas, who later called 911, told the newspaper he ran into the family’s home and saw Jimenez’s father covered in blood and lying on ground.
“His whole face and body was all blood,” the man said. “There was blood everywhere, on the walls, on the floor. The other kid was in the back of the hall, on the floor, also covered in blood. The chairs were everywhere, like there was a big fight.”
Capacette’s slaying haunts Cardenas, who said he thought he could have done more.
“If I had known, I could have grabbed him,” Cardenas said. “He was walking down the street like nothing even happened.”
Jimenez, who was on parole at the time of Capacette’s death, was arrested by NYPD officers a short time after the alleged attacks. He was booked on criminal possession of a weapon, assault, reckless endangerment, and harassment charges in addition to the murder charge, according to online jail records.
The motive for the series of knife attacks is unknown, according to WPIX. However, the Daily News reported that Jimenez was taken for a psychiatric evaluation after his arrest.
Jimenez’s Legal Aid Society attorney argued during a Tuesday arraignment hearing that his client was “at risk to himself” and should be placed on suicide watch, according to the Daily News.
Capacette’s neighbors said the young woman, who left behind an 8-year-old son, will be remembered as a devoted mother.
“Her kid was her pride and joy,” neighbor Efrain Hernandez, told the Daily News. “She was very nice. Her dream was her son.”
Her child was reportedly with the boy’s biological father at the time of the stabbing.
Jimenez is being held at Anna M. Kross Correctional Facility on Rikers Island. His next court appearance is scheduled for April 15, according to the New York City Department of Correction.
The Bronx man was convicted of robbery and reckless endangerment in 2013, local media also reported. Jimenez was sentenced to a maximum of nine years in prison but was released on parole in 2017.
A spokesperson for the New York City Police Department didn’t immediately respond to Oxygen.com’s request for comment on Wednesday.
