Man found dead; susp flees out window & cuffed

A 71-year-old man was found dead in his Manhattan apartment early Wednesday — and his son’s girlfriend was nabbed trying to get away down the fire escape, police said.

Police received multiple 911 calls from the apartment building on Seaman Ave. near W. 207th St. in Inwood starting around 2:30 a.m.

As cops were arriving, Cassandra Carter, 27, was spotted coming down the fire escape from the second-floor apartment where her boyfriend and the victim, Jerry Fox, lived.

The senior was dead in the apartment with cuts on his body, police said. The case is being investigated as a homicide though the city medical examiner has yet to determine his cause of death.

Carter was taken into custody and charged with murder. She has a previous arrest on an arson charge for allegedly setting fire to a floor mat in the apartment in 2016, sources said.

Neighbors said Fox lived with his adopted son. They said Carter either lived there or visited on a regular basis.

A neighbor said the elderly man had knocked on his door around dinnertime, begging to use his phone to call the police.

“His son’s girlfriend had locked herself in his bedroom with his phone,” he recalled. “He came out of his apartment and asked to use our phone. He called the police. He was physically scared of her because she’s big and strong.”

The neighbor said he didn’t hear what Fox told cops over the phone, but police came a short time later, and the man went back to his apartment.

“The cops came, and there was lots of yelling and shouting,” he said.

The neighbor didn’t know it, but he’d never see Fox the man alive again.

“He seemed like a good guy,”

NEWS DAILY YORK KRIEGSTEIN/NEW BRITTANY the neighbor said. “He just had the burden of his son’s girlfriend. We’ve heard yelling before. I think she just became an unwanted guest.”

Another neighbor, Dawning Greenstreet, 44, said she saw police activity at the apartment on Sunday and Monday.

“That’s really awful. I’m really sad,” Greenstreet said. “He remembered everyone’s name on the floor. He was very sweet. He was very friendly, very welcoming. Last time I with him, it was like Saturday afternoon. He told us he was on his way to volunteer at his church to work at a soup kitchen. He said he does that often.”

A former neighbor named Sherry, 73, said the victim was close with his son, and did what he could to protect him.

“I’d see his son with him when he was a little boy, going in and out,” she said. “When he was younger, he would mention that he had adopted his son. He seemed proud of that. It appeared on the outside that their relationship was fine.”

But the relationship with the girlfriend was another matter.

“He had some run-ins with her in the past,” Sherry said. “We heard stories that they had domestic scuffles. He tried to smooth it over at the time, because he cared about his son. I feel really bad for him. Because he was religious and he really tried to be a good person.”