Early in the morning on October 28, transit officers on an A train at Columbus Circle in Manhattan were about to write 43-year-old Gregory White a ticket for the disorderly-conduct offense of taking up more than one subway seat. When they went to run his name through the system, they discovered that White was wanted in connection with the January murder of Victoria Hammond, 58.
Hammond was found dead in her Coney Island apartment on January 24, 2015. According to officials, she had been stabbed 24 times. White, her boyfriend at the time, has been wanted for questioning ever since and successfully evaded the law until this Wednesday, when he was reprimanded by police for having his legs up on a subway seat. He was brought into questioning at Coney Island’s 60th Precinct station where he confessed to the murder.
The New York Post has reactions from Hammond’s family:
“Wow. On the A train. Wow,” the victim’s son, Dartaguan, 38, of Waterbury, Conn., said when told how cops found the suspect.
“They followed through and did not give up,” the son added. “They did a great job.”
Other family members were shocked to hear that White’s bad subway etiquette led to his arrest.
“We had hope that somebody was going to pay for this,” said the victim’s former husband, Eric Hammond, 66, of Brooklyn.
During his arraignment on Thursday, White—to the outrage of the victim’s relatives—claimed that he stabbed Hammond in self defense.
The New York Daily News reports:
White claimed Hammond came at him with the knife first during an argument, a police source said. He said he grabbed the weapon as he tried to defend himself and ended up stabbing the woman, whom he had been seeing for about a month, he said.
White has been charged with second degree murder.
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