Stab suspect high when he killed random woman: source
A murder suspect was drunk and high when he stabbed a stranger to death without warning in a Brooklyn parking lot, a law enforcement source said Tuesday.
Anthony Wilson, 34, is accused of plunging a long knife into Dorothy Clarke-Rozier’s back as she walked through a parking lot on Albany Ave. near Glenwood Road in East Flatbush on her way to work early Sunday.
Clarke-Rozier’s family initially suspected a man who had been stalking her may have been responsible for her death. But the law enforcement source says the stabbing was the random work of a “lunatic” who admitted to drinking and smoking before the stabbing.
“It looks completely random. It wasn’t whoever the family was talking about,” the source said. “Completely random, no interaction. The guy seems like a complete lunatic. Has a mental history.”
The victim’s family says they’ve never heard of the suspect before.
“Police said he’s a random person who doesn’t know her,” Clarke-Rozier’s sister Myrtle Clarke told the Daily News on Tuesday. “I’m wondering why would someone see a random woman and just walk up to her and kill her like that?”
When he was arrested, Wilson told the cops he had been out drinking and smoking with friends before the murder, but his statements were mostly “rantings and ravings,” according to the source.
The killing was caught on surveillance video obtained by investigators, with Wilson following Clarke-Rozier for a few blocks before stabbing her in the parking lot, the source said.
Clarke-Rozier was on her way to work at a nearby Pathmark, where she was picking up a shift for a woman who called out sick. She stumbled bleeding into the Pathmark to call for help from her manager. The knife was still in her back.
“‘They assault me, they assault me,’ with a slow voice and she said, ‘I’m hot I’m hot, I’m hot,’ and then they called the ambulance,” her sister said, recalling the victim’s last words.
“It’s very hard to deal with right now,” the sister added. “Why would somebody just kill someone? Didn’t take her phone or jewelry or anything. Just come up and kill her for no reason.”
Clarke-Rozier moved to the city from Montego Bay, Jamaica, after meeting her future husband at a wedding in the States in 2019, the sister said. Though still married, Clarke-Rozier’s husband lives in Philadelphia. She had a son who still lives in Jamaica.
“Dorothy Clarke was a wonderful person. She was a cashier at Pathmark who was well liked, kind, and always pleasant to be around,” said Noah Katz, vice president of PSK Supermarkets.
“She had been with the company since last summer. Her fellow employees were devastated about what happened. Employees that came to her assistance the morning of the incident, as well as those who knew her, have been offered free counseling and paid time off, if needed, to help them through this. Pathmark and all the employees send their deepest condolences to the Clarke family.”
Wilson was arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Monday night for murder after being arrested earlier in the day. He was ordered held without bail.
His defense attorney David Jeffries requested a psychiatric examination of his client, which the judge ordered. Jeffries declined to comment on the case Tuesday.
A woman who answered the door at Wilson’s apartment declined to comment to The News.
Wilson is due back in court April 8.