BUST IN GRANNY MURDERS
Brooklyn handyman charged in slays of 3 elderly women at NYCHA complex
Handyman Kevin Gavin (main photo) is charged Thursday with killing Juanita Caballero (far right), whose body was found Jan. 15, Jacolina James (right), who was found in 2019, and a third victim in 2015. All were neighbors in his Brownsville, Brooklyn, building.
“I hope the guy they caught ... is prosecuted so that my family may have closure ... At the end of the day, I can’t get my grandmother back.”
LAMAAR CRAFTON, JACOLIA JAMES’ GRANDSON
The hunt for a Brooklyn serial killer ended where it began five years ago: Inside the building where he lived alongside his three elderly victims.
A homicidal handyman confessed Thursday to killing a trio of senior citizens inside the Brooklyn NYCHA building they shared with increasing unease over the years, police said.
The victims, all women between the ages of 78 and 83, often relied on accused killer Kevin Gavin for help around their homes before the suspect turned murderous inside their Woodson Houses apartments, cops said.
Gavin, 66, was grabbed by police at the Powell St. building in Brownsville where the first slaying occurred in November 2015 and the most recent last Friday. Charges against him were pending Thursday night.
Cops suspected Gavin was responsible for at least the second slaying when a key piece of evidence uncovered in the past few days helped link him to all three, sources said.
Gavin “took advantage of his relationship with these women,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez. “He was allowed into their homes, then did unspeakable acts of violence against them. These women were beloved mothers, grandmothers and neighbors.”
The homicides left the building’s 450 residents terrified of a killer lurking in their midst — and police said the 5-foot-10, 200-pound suspect was indeed a man who lived among them. He resided on the sixth floor, as did two of his victims, and sported a glass left eye.
“Nobody’s surprised it’s him,” said Esther Williams, vice president of the building’s tenant association. “To a lot of people in the building, he was intimidating. He was always approaching people in the building for money.
“There was no way to get rid of him.” NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said the killer knew all three victims and would often help the women out with repairs and errands.
Gavin, with nine prior arrests for drugs, burglary and other charges, told investigators the killings stemmed from “an argument over money or finances,” said Harrison. A law enforcement source questioned the suspect’s story, adding that any money involved was “small potatoes.”
The most recent victim, Juanita Caballero, 78, was found asphyxiated inside her apartment with a telephone cord wrapped around her neck when her son came to visit last week. According to the source, Gavin used Cabellero’s electronic benefits card after the killing.
Stephen Caballero, who discovered his mother’s body last week, took little solace in the arrest.
“A drop in the bucket of feeling a little better,” he said. “Regardless of a person getting caught or not, it doesn’t take away the pain.”
The two other seniors were murdered
“To a lot of people in the building, he was intimidating. He was always approaching people in the building for money ... There was no way to get rid of him.”
ESTHER WILLIAMS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE BUILDING’S TENANT ASSOCIATION
inside their homes in 2015 and in 2019, with no arrests as frightened residents lived unaware of the killer literally next door.
“God, this is a shocker. I live right next to him,” said one tearful building resident after Thursday’s arrest. “He’d be fixing little things for neighbors in their apartments. I’d always see him with his little tools.”
Rayvonne Evans, 62, moved in with Gavin six months ago and offered a strange defense of her roommate.
“Some people say that he really liked me, and that’s why he didn’t kill me,” said Evans. “I guess he did like me. But he wasn’t a violent person. Never nothing.”
The November 2015 killing targeted Myrtle McKinney, 82, found dead on her kitchen floor by police. Authorities initially treated the case as death by natural causes, but it was ruled a homicide after an undertaker noticed a knife wound on the back of her neck.
In May 2019, victim Jacolia James, 83, was found dead of trauma to the head and torso inside her apartment on the 11th floor of the building.
“I hope the guy they caught ... is prosecuted so that my family may have closure,” her grandson Lamaar Crafton, whose family is suing the city over the killing, said Thursday. “At the end of the day, I can’t get my grandmother back.”
After the first homicide, four cameras were installed in the building’s lobby. An additional 65 cameras were slated for installation throughout the building, but the effort was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic and budget shortfalls, officials said.
NYCHA declined to comment Thursday, saying the case remained an open investigation.
Residents speculated Gavin was connected to two other deaths in the building, including his brother and roommate Leon and a man named Hector Higgins, who died after falling from a ladder two years ago. Harrison said police were investigating whether Gavin was involved in the deaths.
In a particularly bizarre twist, Leon Gavin spoke to the Daily News after the McKinney killing.
Leon recounted how he escorted McKinney to the bank when she withdrew $800 just two days before she was killed.
“Who in their right mind would do this to a sweet old lady?” he asked in 2015, unaware the brother who shared his apartment was the answer.