More than a year after a teen was killed at a Bronx bus stop, the man accused of stabbing him to death was deemed mentally fit to stand trial, and arraigned as a suspect in a murder that shocked the city.
Waldo Mejia, 29, was also charged with stabbing a man five days earlier as the victim waited for a No. 6 train.
The first victim survived.
“The defendant allegedly committed two random, horrific acts of violence,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said Thursday, announcing Mejia’s indictment. “He allegedly stabbed 14-year-old Caleb Rijos on his way to school, who used his last breath to try to speak to his father. Caleb’s death shocked and saddened the city. The defendant is also charged with cutting a man in the arm, severing an artery. We must do more to address underlying mental health issues and get services to people before they can harm others.”
Weeks after police arrested Mejia, he was found mentally unfit to stand trial. Clark said he was deemed restored to fitness on Oct. 10, 2025, paving the way for charges against him that included murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, assault and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Prosecutors said Rijos, 14, was looking the other way and waiting for a bus at Lincoln Ave. and E. 138th St. on Jan. 10, 2025, when Mejia allegedly came up and stabbed him several times with a serrated knife in the heart and lungs.
The boy ran and collapsed on a Mott Haven street after calling his father on the phone for help. A passerby flagged down an ambulance, and medics rushed him to Lincoln Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Cops arrested Mejia the next day for the slaying, plus for an earlier random stabbing nearby at the Third Ave.-138th St. subway station.
Cops said Mejia has a lengthy criminal history with the NYPD, who know him to be mentally ill. He lived on the same block where the teen lived with his family, and his fatal attack on the youth was just around the corner from there.
At the time of the slaying, Mejia faced an ongoing criminal case for allegedly kicking a neighbor’s door and damaging their Ring doorbell camera — by viciously stabbing it with a knife numerous times — in the suspect’s Mott Haven apartment building.
The trouble in Mejia’s building on Alexander Ave. near E. 139th St. began when the 43-year-old neighbor was awoken around 4 a.m. by Mejia, who apparently didn’t have his key.
Mejia was pounding on the building’s front door and ringing the neighbor’s intercom, trying to get inside, cops said.
Days later, Mejia confronted the neighbor, and the conversation set the unhinged man off, the neighbor said.
Ring footage shows Mejia trying to remove his neighbor’s doorbell camera’s lens before getting frustrated around 7 p.m. on Nov. 27, 2024. He then angrily kicked the door before retreating upstairs. About 30 minutes later, he returned with a long kitchen knife and stabbed the camera multiple times, cracking it, the creepy footage shows.
Mejia was arrested for harassment and criminal mischief that day, but the charges were not bail eligible, so he was cut loose after his arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.
Following his arrest on the murder charge, Mejia was again arraigned in Bronx Criminal Court, where he screamed he was “with Satan,” and warned a court officer touching his handcuffs, “I’mma catch you when I can.”
“My name is Waldo Mejia, so get ready to f—ing suffer along with me!” the man shouted during the crazed hearing, after which he was held without bail.
A judge ordered that Mejia be transferred to a psychiatric facility until it could be determined that he could competently stand before a judge or jury.