Ashley Southall and Christina Goldbaum

The woman, Maria Rodriguez, 71, had been stabbed several times in the torso and died in her home, according to police. Her 87-year-old husband, who uses a wheelchair, was stabbed in the chest and slashed across the arm. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center, where he remained in serious condition Sunday.

Investigators were looking to speak with the couple’s 55-year-old son, Oscar Rodriguez Jr., who checked himself into a nearby hospital’s psychiatric ward Saturday, according to a police official. No arrests had been made by Sunday evening and the police did not offer a motive for the attack.

On Saturday, the home attendant called the couple’s family after no one answered their door at 66 Garden Ave. in Bushwick. An in-law, Artelio Reyes, 63, crawled through a window and made the gruesome find, then called the police around 6:50 p.m.

The couple’s home was cordoned off with police tape Sunday and an officer stood guard at the door. As neighbors passed the house, they expressed shock.

“For something like this to happen it’s just unreal,” said Felix Peralta, 42. “She was a precious old woman, very generous, very kind.”

Rodriguez was the third person killed this year in Bushwick, although murders in New York are down this year, according to police statistics.

Neighbors said Rodriguez was a soft-spoken woman who could be found feeding pigeons every morning either on her stoop or in the grassy patch outside her home. Her husband used a wheelchair to get around and rarely left the house, said Roselin Hu, 64, whose sister lives next door.

Vivian Green, 60, who lives across the street, said she exchanged greetings with Rodriguez on her way to the supermarket in the morning.

“She spoke to everybody,” Green said. “She was nice to everybody.”

Phone calls to relatives of the couple went unanswered Sunday. Reyes declined to comment.

Rodriguez purchased the brick-front duplex in 2004, according to property records. The couple lived below a second-floor unit that they rented to tenants.

The house sits in a row of seven similar houses, each facing a small patch of grass with trees that line the sidewalk. A waist-high black metal gate separates the house from the sidewalk and gray concrete steps lead up to the front door.

Peralta, as he walked by the couple’s home Sunday morning, noticed pigeons lining the roof.

“It was like they were waiting for her,” he said.

This article originally appeared in <a id="a6fadd55-d2f7-3380-a885-81b446003808" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/26/nyregion/couple-stabbed-brooklyn-maria-rodriguez.html">The New York Times</a>.

71-year-old woman is killed, and her husband is wounded, in stabbing attack

NEW YORK — A routine visit by a home attendant led to a gruesome discovery over the weekend in Brooklyn, where a woman was killed and her husband was wounded in a knife attack, the police said.

The music was blasting as the crowd, which included teenagers from an elite public high school in Brooklyn, spilled into the courtyard. Barely an hour had passed before residents of the development, the First Houses, called the police at about 10 p.m.

But someone upstairs had decided to take matters into their own hands. White paint and a caustic chemical were poured from overhead, burning at least 10 of the teenagers in the courtyard, the police said Sunday.

Residents described a chaotic scene.

“I heard a huge ruckus and when I looked out the window, I saw a ton of kids below,” said Chaz Rosario, 30, who lives on the fourth floor. “I hadn’t seen anything like that here before. I didn’t know what was going on.”

The victims, six girls and four boys between the ages of 15 and 18, were treated for minor burns at nearby hospitals, police said.

Valerie Vail, the mother of one victim, said many partygoers were students at Brooklyn Technical High School, including her daughter, a sophomore who she said was attending her first party as a student there. The attack left the girl with burns the size of dimes and quarters on her back, chest and arms, Vail said.

She said her daughter had shown her photos of other partygoers who had large burns across their chests, necks and legs.

After the paint and chemicals rained down, some partygoers rushed the East Third Street building’s front door and attempted to force their way in, slamming their fists against the door’s glass panes, cracking one, said Michael Strachan, 60, who lives in the building.

One of the residents who had gathered in a first-floor hallway went to the door and showed her government identification to the young people through the glass, witnesses said.

The group quickly scattered at the sight of the ID and the arriving police, who told them to back off.

“It was nuts,” Strachan said. “I came home and there were all of these teenagers and smashed beer bottles everywhere, all of these cop cars were here, nobody knew what was going on.”

Many of the injured students ran to a nearby deli and doused the burns with milk. Vail said she told her daughter over the phone to get in a cab headed uptown, but police and ambulances swarmed as the girl was waiting with friends for a cab.

Vail said other parents of teenagers at the party had been told by police that a man who lived in the building appeared to have thrown an orange-colored drain cleaner on the crowd below. The police would not confirm that information, or provide additional details. They said no arrests have been made.

“We are shocked,” Vail said. “I try to teach my kid to be resilient, but it’s also traumatic and upsetting.”

Several residents of the building said they overheard the teenagers telling police and each other that the host of the party was a young man who had advertised the gathering on social media, with a $10 cover charge. Tenants said they do not believe the host lived in the building.

The tenants’ association president, Heyward Walker, said Sunday that he had not rented out the basement room, as some residents said they suspected, but he would not comment further about the incident. A spokeswoman for New York City Housing Authority did not respond to an email seeking comment Sunday.

On Sunday, a marked police sport-utility vehicle sat outside the building, where footprints outlined in white paint stained the stone pathway from the back of the building to its front gate. Cigarette butts and smashed Heineken bottles littered the ground and smudges of white paint were brushed against two green posts outside the front door, where one pane of glass remained cracked.

Vail said she feared that some students who were injured had not been treated.

“A lot of the kids were afraid to tell their parents and have not had help yet,” she said. “They’re just scared.”

Rosario said the party shook the typically calm neighborhood.

“I’m concerned because this is a gated community,” he said. “No one should have been in the gate to begin with unless they live here.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="17768114-2f4c-3940-ae9d-456f84f42904" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/nyregion/brooklyn-tech-party-acid.html">The New York Times</a>.

10 Teenagers Burned by Acid-Like Liquid Thrown From Above at Raucous Party

NEW YORK — A party advertised on social media drew as many as 300 young people Saturday night to a public housing complex in Manhattan’s East Village, where residents said partygoers paid $10 to enter a basement room usually reserved for tenant meetings.

10 teenagers burned by acid-like liquid thrown from above at raucous party

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Ashley Southall and Christina Goldbaum

Articles written by the author

71-year-old woman is killed, and her husband is wounded, in stabbing attack

10 teenagers burned by acid-like liquid thrown from above at raucous party