‘SPOOKY MAN’
6th-grader tells jury of horror stab in elevator
YOUNG MIKAYLA Capers has only seen Daniel St. Hubert in person twice in her life, and years apart at that, but she seemed to have no trouble pointing him out in a courtroom Tuesday.
Peering at him from the witness stand in Brooklyn Supreme Court was the 11-year-old girl’s second face-to-face encounter with the man. The first time, she said, he was stabbing her — over and over and over — in an East New York elevator.
Mikayla was just 7 when she and her best friend, Prince Joshua (P.J.) Avitto, were trapped inside the elevator of the boy’s Schenck Ave. building on June 1, 2014, with St. Hubert.
“I got into the elevator first, pressed the button. P.J. was behind me, then the mysterious man came in,” Mikayla testified after identifying him for the jury.
On cross-examination, Mikayla added she noticed the “spooky man” in the hallway of the Boulevard Houses. He was leaning against the mailboxes with his hands behind his back before they entered the elevator.
“He told us to shut up,” she said as she scratched her head and clenched a Pokémon game card that 6-year-old P.J. walked around with in his pocket.
“I felt anxious. P.J. got quiet and he repeatedly stabbed us,” Mikayla said as she was handed tissues and relatives in the audience cried.
Now a sixth-grader, Mikayla said didn’t know what the relentless weapon was, but that it was “sharp.” She was stabbed 16 times.
Juror No. 2 kept his head down throughout most of her testimony.
The attacker ran out of the elevator and left the children for dead, but Mikayla survived and crawled to the courtyard for help.
“P.J. looked dead. His eyes were wide open with a bunch of blood on the floor,” she said.
A neighbor saw Mikayla collapse on the ground and called 911. She spent nine days in the hospital, according to trial testimony. P.J. was stabbed 11 times and died at Brookdale University Hospital.
While Mikayla was hospitalized, she watched the news and learned about her pal’s death.
Prosecutors showed the jury video surveillance of St. Hubert, 30, signing out of the homeless shelter — just blocks from the Boulevard Houses — shortly before the stabbings.
St. Hubert’s attorney, Howard Greenberg, questioned Mikayla’s ability to tell the truth.
“When do you tell lies?” Greenberg asked as the girl’s relatives shook their heads.
“I only tell white lies,” she responded.
Outside of court, Greenberg called Mikayla’s testimony “adopted” from the media and said her tears weren’t real.