River find tied to shelter horror
A BODY FOUND floating in the Hudson River may be the 21-year-old murder suspect in the near-decapitation of an ex-city teacher in an East Harlem homeless shelter nearly two months ago, police sources said Thursday.
The badly decomposed body was found floating near 145th St. in Harlem about 11 a.m. Wednesday, officials said.
When an NYPD police boat brought the remains to shore, they found a benefit card belonging to Anthony White.
White had been sought for stabbing 62-year-old Deven Black to death Jan. 27 inside the Boulevard Homeless Shelter on Lexington Ave., the sources said.
The body was found about 2½ miles from where the slaying took place, officials said.
The gruesome murder sparked a citywide manhunt for White, who dashed from the shelter after Black’s body was found in the room they shared.
Black, an ex-city schools teacher and librarian with a troubled history and financial woes, moved into the 101-bed shelter just two days before he was killed there.
Jill Black, the victim’s ex-wife, did not know about the break in the case when reached Thursday. She declined comment.
Another relative said that justice wasn’t served for the beloved teacher.
“They didn’t catch the guy. ... I have no comment,” said the relative, who wished not to be named.
White, who moved into the shelter a month before the killing and struggled with mental illness, became unhinged after the disappearance of his prized iPhone, residents told the Daily News.
“He would walk around yelling, ‘I’m going to kill somebody!’” said Kenneth Bricks, 52. “You got a sense something bad was about to happen. You just got that chill.”
Resident Denzel Phelps, 24, claimed White was struggling with a number of different issues when he arrived at the shelter.
“He was away from his family, so he had a lot on his mind,” Phelps said.
After repeated complaints about violence in the the city’s homeless shelters, the NYPD has agreed to retrain the Homeless Services Department police who now patrol city-run shelters, it was announced Tuesday.
An autopsy was slated to determine if the remains are White’s and how he died, an NYPD spokesman said.