Man shoots woman to death in hospital bed, then kills self

VALHALLA, N.Y. — A man shot a patient to death in her bed at a suburban New York hospital Wednesday and then killed himself, police said.

Police were trying to determine the connection between the two, who were found in a fourth-floor room after gunfire rang out around 9:40 a.m. at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, a major medical campus about 35 miles north of Manhattan. No one else was in the room at the time, authorities said.

“There appears to be some type of family relationship between the two victims and a murdersuicide-type situation,” Westchester County Police Commissioner Thomas Gleason said. He said both people were in their 70s.

The woman was found in a bed, the man on the floor, and a licensed .38-caliber revolver on the scene, he said. It’s unknown how many shots were fired.

Dr. Srihari Naidu, an interventional cardiologist at the hospital, said he was at his office in a nearby building when he got an “active shooter alert,” followed by a lockdown notification that lasted for about a half hour.

The building where the shooting happened is “very well guarded,” he said, and many areas cannot be accessed without badges.

A third-party company provides security for Westchester Medical Center, including armed guards who make round-the-clock rounds on the hospital campus. People entering the hospital aren’t searched for weapons, however.

Police said the hospital’s security staff responded immediately, and police arrived within two minutes.

Visitor Linda Pepitone said she was trying to get on an elevator, aiming to seek out some salt and pepper for her egg breakfast, when she realized the elevator didn’t seem to be running. A hospital employee came by and told her there was an alert about someone with a weapon.

Jatziri Escobar, a patient who arrived at the hospital shortly after 9 a.m., told The Journal News that she was in a room on the first floor when staffers ran through the building, alerting patients about the active shooting.

“I was kinda scared, but one of the officers told me to relax and all would be OK,” said Escobar, 22, of Elmsford.

The fourth-floor area around the site of the shooting remained sealed off afterward, Gleason said, but other aspects of the hospital got back to normal.