Volume 74, Number 29 | November 24 – 30, 2004
Police Blotter
Homicide arrest
An 18-year-old resident of the LaGuardia Houses was arrested on Sunday for the July 24 death of Joseph LoCascio, 22, a former resident of the Lower East Side complex, who was stabbed to death with an ice pick in front of 65 Jefferson St.
Detectives in the Seventh Precinct named Keith Knox, of 65 Jefferson St., as a suspect last week and issued a photo of the suspect and a call for information leading to his arrest on Nov. 17. Knox was taken into custody and charged four days later.
LoCascio’s funeral provoked an outpouring of sympathy from neighbors who knew him since he was a youngster. He was visiting family and friends in the development when he was stabbed. He was also known by his graffiti tag name, “FEX.”
Knox was scheduled for arraignment on Monday.
N.Y.U. scholar dies
A research fellow at New York University School of Law died Sat., Nov. 20, at St. Vincent’s Hospital where she was taken Wed. morning, Nov. 17, after she was hit by a truck that was illegally backing onto Mercer St. from Bleecker St., police said.
Kim Barry, 35, a 1998 graduate of N.Y.U. School of Law, was doing research as a Furman Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at the time of her death.
Police and the hospital were unable at first to identify her because she carried only the keys to her apartment at 3 Washington Sq. Village and no identification. It was believed that she was going out jogging at 9:15 a.m. when she was struck by a ladder protruding from the back of the truck.
The driver, Mahar A. Safa, of Ft. Lee, N.J., received five traffic summonses for offenses, including driving an uninsured vehicle, unsafe driving, disobeying a one-way street sign and failure to yield to a pedestrian. No criminal charges are pending.
Shot on Stanton St.
A woman resident of 101 Stanton St. was in critical but stable condition at Bellevue Hospital after she was shot in the chest in her apartment at 3 a.m. Thurs., Nov. 18. Police said the victim, 40, was apparently shot by the man who lives with her. The suspect, 41, had not been apprehended by press time on Mon., Nov. 22.
Beaten by gang
A group of four or five men attacked and severely beat a 27-year-old Flushing resident as he was walking on W. 25th St. and Sixth Ave. at 4:30 a.m. Sat., Nov. 20, police said. The victim was taken to St. Vincent’s Hospital in critical but stable condition. An Asian woman accompanied the attackers, described only as black males, according to police who said they did not know what provoked the incident.
Seek rape suspect
Police issued a description last week of a suspect in the knifepoint rape and abduction during the early hours of Oct. 31 of a woman who had just left a Halloween party at Crobar on W. 28th St.
The suspect was described as a white Hispanic man in his mid-20s, 5 ft. 6 in. tall, thin build, who carries a silver folding knife. He was driving a black two-door sports car with the back seats removed.
Police said he forced the victim into his car at knifepoint, raped her and drove to Elizabeth, N.J., where he ejected her from the car nude.
Extradite murder suspect
A man accused of fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend, a former Greenwich Village resident, in her Nantucket, Mass., home on Oct. 25 agreed in front of a Rhode Island judge on Nov. 19 to be extradited to face a murder charge in Massachusetts. The suspect, Thomas E. Toolan III, 37, is charged in the death of Elizabeth Lochtefeld, 44, a former financial consultant who moved to Nantucket last winter from the Village. A Rhode Island state trooper had arrested him after recognizing his car from a description issued after the victim’s body was found earlier that day.
Albert Amateau
