Evidence of stab spree
Large knife, bloody sweatshirt found in suspect’s backpack
Cops who searched the backpack of accused Queens serial stabber Jermain Rigueur found a bloody hooded sweatshirt and six-inch, fixed-blade hunting knife, prosecutors said Friday.
After Rigueur’s arrest following a twoday stabbing rampage that left a trail of victims across Jamaica and Springfield Gardens, police had to wait a day to search the gray Mancro backpack Rigueur was wearing when he was taken into custody.
Cops found human blood inside the hood and sleeves of the dark gray sweatshirt and a menacing knife they believe Rigueur was wielding when he had a neighborhood on edge.
“New Yorkers have to be able to live and work and play here in the city of New York and know that they are safe,” Queens DA Melinda Katz said after Rigueur was arraigned Friday in Queens Criminal Court on attempted murder, assault and weapons possession charges following the stabbing spree. “They also need to know that when they are not safe, when something like this happens, that the defendant will be held accountable in this city.”
Even before they obtained a search warrant, cops had every reason to believe a knife was in the bag.
When cops grabbed him in front of his home Wednesday night — after painstakingly tracking surveillance video of his movements — an officer asked Rigueur if he had anything on him “that will poke me or cut me,” according to court papers.
The suspect told him he had a knife in his backpack, officials said.
And, according to a criminal complaint, when Rigueur, 27, was shown surveillance photos of the suspect, he said he is “pretty sure” that he is the person depicted in the photos.
“The case that the people have presented here is a strong case,” Brendan Quinones, an assistant Queens DA said during the arraignment.
“The evidence of the defendant’s own admissions to having been at the location on January 16, 2024, the possession by the defendant of an extremely distinct Bowie knife, that again respectfully submitted to the court is extremely consistent with the knife used.”
Rigueur pleaded not guilty, and his lawyer, Arthur Edwards, called the charges against him “baseless.”
“He has no prior criminal convictions. He comes from a strong immigrant family,” Edwards said. “Based on preliminary investigation, we believe that the people will be unable to sustain these charges at trial.”
Prosecutors accused Rigueur of attacking four people at random over two days, even laughing in the face of one of them.
On Tuesday, at approximately 12:05 a.m., Rigueur was closely following a 34-year-old woman as she walked home before stabbing her in the torso near 158th St. and 134th Ave.
The victim was treated at a local hospital for internal bleeding.
Shortly afterward, at approximately 12:13 a.m., Rigueur, holding a large fixedblade knife, tapped on the window of Gas City Smoke Shop on Guy R. Brewer Blvd. in a stabbing motion.
On Wednesday, at approximately 7:21 a.m., Rigueur allegedly stabbed a 74-yearold man in the back as he walked with his wife on 134th Ave. near Guy R. Brewer Blvd. The victim underwent surgery to his abdomen at a local hospital.
Minutes later, at approximately 7:25 a.m., near 137th Ave. and 160th St., Rigueur approached a 41-year-old man and swung a knife at his chest. Rigueur missed the man’s chest, but stabbed the victim inthe lower back.
The victim received stitches at a local hospital.
Cops suspect he might have been involved in a fifth stabbing, an assault on a 61-year-old as early as Jan. 8, but that incident is still being investigated, and Rigueur has not been charged in that case.
Rigueur, who recently moved from Suffolk County, L.I., to the neighborhood in the Springfield Gardens and Rochdale Village area where the Queens stabbings took place, is a greeter at Woodhull Hospital in Bedford-Stuyvesant.
A lanyard spotted around his neck on a surveillance video turned out to be his hospital ID, sources said. He was wearing it when cops took him into custody.