SLAY SUSP BLOOD TRAIL 20, charged in B’klyn subway stab
Gal,
A 20-year-old woman faces a manslaughter charge in a fatal stabbing on a Brooklyn subway platform, after cops followed a trail of blood to track her down, officials said.
Mia Simmons, who lives less than a half-mile south of the stabbing scene, was charged with manslaughter and weapon possession Tuesday night. Detectives had questioned Simmons during the day, while the family of 30-year-old Latanya Watson identified her body at the morgue.
“My daughter was a beautiful person,” Watson’s heartbroken father Frank Watson said outside his daughter’s home Tuesday. “She had a job, she was going to work.”
“We just want to bury her body,” he said.
Although detectives were still investigating, there is no indication that the two women knew each other before their crazed clash on the train, sources said.
An argument between Simmons and Watson erupted on a Manhattanbound No. 3 train as it rumbled into the Sutter Ave. station at about 9:15 p.m. Monday, officials said. When the train came to a stop, both women got off and went to the mezzanine level, where the fight continued.
Watson pepper-sprayed Simmons, who responded by pulling out a small knife and plunging it into Watson’s neck, face and arm, according to police.
Video obtained by the Daily News shows Watson grab Simmons from behind after the two women walk through a turnstile. Simmons spins around, and the two struggle for about 40 seconds, with Watson grabbing her attacker by the hair and the attacker stabbing her repeatedly.
Watson, her shirt covered with blood, pins Simmons to a subway map, then stops, holding the stabber by the hair as the knife-wielding woman talks to her for a few seconds. Watson staggers off, covered in blood, as stunned straphangers watch from the other side of the turnstile.
Medics rushed Watson to Brookdale University Hospital, where she died about an hour later.
Relatives said Watson lived with her fiancé and 12year-old son two blocks from the station where she was stabbed. Her aunt, Joan McGriff, said her niece “never caused trouble.”
“She was very jolly, very sweet, very respectful. She minded her own business,” McGriff told The News. “Whatever happened here, I don’t know. I was shocked when I got the news this morning.”
Police said Watson’s attacker was also cut during the struggle and was bleeding when she ran out of the station. The blood trail from the gruesome scene led police to the suspect’s grandmother’s home, where they were told the suspect was at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, sources said.
Police found the suspect in the hospital and brought her in for questioning.
Neighbors said Watson was likely on her way home from her job at the Fairway Market in Red Hook.
She always carried pepper spray on her for protection, said neighbor Kimberly Jones, stunned that someone would take Watson’s life during a simple spat on a train.
“(Latanya) never had no problems, was always by herself, minding her business. Never in any type of drama. I never even seen her argue with nobody,” Jones said. “That girl didn’t have to stab her. That was somebody’s mother, somebody’s fiancée.”