‘Heart’-felt rage at kin’s ‘killer’
The aunt of a straphanger fatally shoved in front of a Manhattan train said she wanted to rip the alleged killer’s “f--king heart out” as she faced him in court for the first time Wednesday, and blasted his family’s claim of mental illness as an excuse for the random attack.
Christine Conte, 70, went off the rails outside a Manhattan courtroom after accused subway shover Carlton McPherson pleaded not guilty to murdering her nephew, Jason Volz, at an East Harlem subway station last month.
“I wanted to leap out and rip his f--king heart out, rip his heart out,” Conte seethed to reporters when asked about seeing McPherson.
Conte, who referred to herself as Volz’s “caretaker,” cried hysterically inside the tense courtroom as McPherson was brought in, muttering, “Why did he kill Jason?”
Court officers tried escorting her out, apparently at the behest of Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Curtis Farber.
“If the judge just asked for it, you have to leave,” said one sergeant, who eventually let Conte and her son stay after she calmed down.
Quiet in court
McPherson, 24, didn’t flash a sinister smile like the one he sported after his arrest, but sat quietly during the brief Supreme Court arraignment on an indictment charging him with second-degree murder.
His family — including his brother, who has said McPherson suffers from bipolar disorder — sat quietly on the other side of the courtroom, and didn’t speak after the hearing.
After court, Conte blasted the family’s claims about McPherson’s mental state, and said he is just an “evil person” and a “motherf--ker.”
“He’s just a vicious person. He’s mean, he’s troubled. Does that mean everyone who is sick needs medication? I don’t think so,” Conte said.
The aunt had previously told The Post that she warned Volz days before the fatal shove not to take the subway because of the uptick in violence underground.
Volz, 55, was a father and native New Yorker who worked as a carpenter, when he was shoved in front of a subway train at East 125th Street and Lexington Avenue station shortly before 7 p.m. March 25.
The judge kept McPherson in custody and ordered him back to court Aug. 12.