The man accused of killing three people in a stabbing spree Monday had been released from New York City jail a month earlier and was free on bail on suspicion of other crimes in New Jersey, records showed.
Ramon Rivera, 51, made his first appearance in front of a Manhattan judge Tuesday and was formally told he faces three counts of first-degree murder.
When police caught Rivera on Monday, he was carrying two knives and “wearing a grey sweatshirt that appeared to have bloodstains on it and dark pants,” according to a criminal complaint.
New York Police Detective Yeoman Castro spoke to Rivera, “who admitted in substance” that “he stabbed the three” victims, the complaint said.
Rivera’s court-assigned lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment Tuesday.
Hours after Rivera, who is homeless, was taken into custody following the trio of slayings, New York Mayor Eric Adams was questioning why he was walking free.
“He was sentenced a few months ago, and there’s a real question that we need to look at on why he was out on the streets, and he has some severe mental health issues that should have been examined,” Adams told reporters Monday.
Rivera was released from a New York City jail on Oct. 17 for time served on burglary and assault charges, records showed. Records showed that he is alleged to have committed grand larceny by taking property from a Manhattan store on the day he was released.
And earlier this year, Rivera was charged with multiple crimes in neighboring New Jersey, according to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
He was accused of breaking into a CBD store, the Green Room, on Jan. 11 and stealing “mason jars of CBD buds and other items,” according to a grand jury indictment.
Four days later, Rivera grabbed “phones and other electronics” from Hi Wireless store in Union City, another indictment alleges.
In total, Rivera has been arrested eight times in New York City in the past year, court records showed. He also has been arrested in Ohio and Florida.
“The Criminal Justice Reform Act provides an outline for when a defendant should be detained or released from custody pending prosecution,” a spokesperson for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. “Given the nature of these offenses, the defendant was released on pretrial monitoring.”
Rivera was arrested after three people were killed in attacks that police called have called “unprovoked.”
Angel Lata Landi, 36, a construction worker from Peekskill, was attacked near his worksite at 444 W. 19th St. at 8:22 a.m. ET, police said.
Then, at 10:27 a.m., Chang Wang, 67, was stabbed to death as he was fishing in the East River near 500 E. 30th St., about 2.3 miles and a 52-minute walk from where Landi was attacked, police said.
The third victim, Wilma Augustin, 36, who lived in Manhattan, was fatally stabbed near East 42nd Street and First Avenue at 10:55 a.m., about three-quarters of a mile and a 15-minute walk from the second slaying.
A witness “observed the defendant standing very close to a woman, heard that woman yelling ‘Help,’ and then saw the defendant run,” according to the complaint.
Augustin had an 8-year-old child, according to Adams, who hinted that she might have been a new U.S. resident.
“One person is just fishing on FDR Drive and he’s stabbed. Another person is on his way to work and a mother of an 8-year-old child” are both killed, Adams told reporters Tuesday.
“You know that child came here, that family came here, to pursue the American dream. How do you explain to that child what happened?” he said.
Augustin’s publicly listed address appeared to be a shelter for newly arrived migrants, though Adams stopped just short of identifying her as a migrant.
“We have to look into that. We’re still clearing out exactly what’s going on and exactly what happened,” he told reporters.
Rivera was arrested a short time later, after the attack on Augustin, police said.
