Survivor’s cry: ‘Help me! Help me!’
Police: Wife fled as husband killed child, mother-in-law, himself
Two people were killed at an Angelo Drive home Wednesday night by an assailant who then took his own life, State Police said.
The 57-year-old homeowner, Bhupinder Singh, shot and killed his mother-in-law, Manjeet Kaur, 55, and his daughter, Jasleen Kaur, 14, county law enforcement sources said Thursday. His wife, Rashpal Kaur, 40, suffered wounds to the arm but survived, and investigators were waiting to speak to her at Albany Medical Center Hospital on Thursday.
The violence at 1313 Angelo Drive happened before 9:15 p.m. Wednesday, the time when ambulances were called in to assist. Residents estimated the shooting may have occurred at 8:45 p.m. The home is near the entrance to
the dead-end street at the intersection of Angelo Drive and Sand Road. The house backs up to Interstate 90 and is between exits 11 and 12.
An official familiar with the case said Rashpal Kaur sought help from neighbors after fleeing from the house, bleeding from her wound.
Jim Lundstrom, who lives next door to the shooting scene, said he was lying in bed at around 9 p.m. when he heard his doorbell ring for about a minute without pause. The person outside kept their finger on the doorbell, and as Lundstrom got up to see who it was, he heard a piercing scream outside:
“Help me! Help me!” “We live on a dead-end street, so the only people who come up here are the people who live here,” Lundstrom said. “I’ve lived here for 27 years. Nobody’s rang my doorbell constantly holding on like that. So my first reaction was, ‘Something’s wrong with somebody.’”
When Lundstrom checked outside his window, he saw someone walk away from his home and stumble their way up the street to another house. He opened his door, turned on the front porch light and looked down at his driveway.
“There was blood everywhere,” Lundstrom said.
Rashpal Kaur proceeded to walk up the street, visiting two or three other homes to seek help. An ambulance was dispatched to a home four houses away from the shooting scene.
Lundstrom called police, and around 10 or 15 minutes later, police vehicles from several agencies filled Angelo Drive, he said.
Police at the scene advised arriving emergency crews from the Castleton Ambulance Squad and Mohawk Ambulance that there were three shooting victims and two handguns at 1313 Angelo Drive. The surviving shooting victim was up the street, where a Mohawk Ambulance with advanced life support equipment was sent.
The street would remain a crime scene throughout the night as officers gathered information from neighbors. State Police Thursday said they continue to investigate.
Lundstrom said officers could trace which houses Rashpal Kaur had knocked on by following the trail of blood she left while crisscrossing homes and driveways in the neighborhood, seeking help. Lundstrom and other neighbors said she eventually collapsed on the street before an ambulance arrived.
On Thursday afternoon, one home four houses down from the crime scene still had blood on its front doorsteps.
Lundstrom said he heard no gunshots, but he did wake up to the sight of a bullet hole on his neighbors’ home, which he could see from his house as he stood outside on Thursday morning, still reeling from the night’s events.
Lundstrom said Rashpal Kaur visited him and his wife three times in 2020 to talk about problems she’d been having with her husband.
“She’d come here and say, ‘I don’t have any food,’ or, ‘He doesn’t let me go anywhere,’ or, ‘I can’t drive my car,’” Lundstrom said, adding that there was likely domestic violence involved.
Rashpal Kaur, neighbors said, would often walk up and down the street. Neighbors said she is a nice person who’d said she didn’t have a driver’s license and complained she couldn’t leave home. They said she’d asked for help getting a learner’s permit.
In 2017, Singh was acquitted of third-degree rape in a weeklong Rensselaer County Court trial. Singh said at the trial that he had lost “business, money and respect in my community without reason.” Troopers had said in December 2016 that the victim of the alleged rape was physically helpless, unable to consent to sexual contact and that Singh was acquainted with the woman.
Singh, who had lived in the neighborhood for eight or nine years, didn’t interact much with his Angelo Drive neighbors, and Lundstrom said this was his second marriage and that the homeowner rarely made eye contact and was “not friendly.”
“He kept pretty much to himself,” said Donna Conlin, who lives across the street from 1313 Angelo Drive and is a retired Schodack town clerk.
Singh was the owner of Pit Stop 66 in Hudson, a beverage store. A worker there on Thursday morning, who asked to not be identified, said they learned about what happened at the residence through a customer. The worker said other employees were confused and concerned about the shooting, but added that Singh had been a good boss.
On the driveway of where the shooting took place, the license plate of a black BMW X5 read, “PITSTOP6.”
Neighbors said Jasleen, the couple’s daughter, attended Schodack schools. The school district delayed the start of high school and junior high classes Thursday to allow crisis counselors to meet with students and staff.
“She was a pretty little girl,” Conlin said.
The girl’s death was felt throughout the school community.
“It is with deep sadness and regret that we inform you of the passing of one of our students in the Jr./sr. High School,” the district wrote on its website. “As you can imagine, our initial reaction was one of shock and disbelief. All of us are still struggling to make sense of this tragedy and the sudden loss of such a bright young woman.”
Superintendent Jason Chevrier said in a statement that “words cannot express the shock, pain and grief that we are feeling at this time. All of us are struggling to make sense of this loss of such a bright young life.”
Rensselaer County took the added step of offering assistance through its Mental Health Office to those affected by the shooting, especially those in the immediate neighborhood, officials said. The county’s Office of Mental Health can be reached at 516-270-2800 or through the Mental Health Crisis Unit at 518-292-5499. Officials said all calls will be kept confidential.