A man and a woman were stabbed to death on New York City subway trains on Friday night, the police said, and two other people were stabbed but survived. Law enforcement officials said that all the attacks may have been committed by the same person and that they believed that all four victims were homeless.
The fatal stabbings, miles apart but both on the A line, come amid a recent spate of violence in the subways, with an apparent rash of people getting pushed onto tracks, slashed and beaten.
The first killing was reported shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday aboard an A train stopped at the Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue station in Queens. The police said they found a man with numerous stab wounds to the neck and torso on a seat in the train.
Two hours later, shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday, the police said, a 44-year-old woman with stab wounds throughout her body was found under a seat on a northbound A train stopped at the Inwood-207 Street station in Upper Manhattan. Both victims were pronounced dead at the scene; the police did not release the names of either one.
On Saturday morning, investigators were canvassing the four locations where they said people had been savagely stabbed. Three of the incidents occurred within a short time span and close to each other.
“Examining the proximity of the three of the crimes and the short time span in which they occurred, we are examining that a single perpetrator is behind all four incidents,” a law enforcement official said.
One of the victims who survived was in “very serious condition” at a hospital, the police said. Police Commissioner Dermot F. Shea is expected to address the killings at a news conference Saturday afternoon.
“We will spare no resources in bringing the person or persons who did this to justice,” Commissioner Shea said Saturday ahead of the expected briefing.