The man knifed to death in an unprovoked double stabbing outside a Bronx apartment building had just hung up the phone with his daughter as the killer approached, friends said on Thursday as police apprehended the man accused of committing the split-second slaying.
Victim Rashaun Shettlewood, 32, had just finished chatting away with his daughter on the phone when Jeffrey Jorge walked up and stabbed him multiple times in the chest and torso. Jorge then repeatedly stabbed Shettlewood’s friend, 33, police said.
“He just finished talking to his daughter,” a neighbor, who would only identify himself as Andy, said of Shettlewood. “That’s how it caught him by surprise.”
Shettlewood and his friend were hanging out under a construction scaffolding outside a Davidson Ave. apartment building in Morris Heights when Jorge, 37, casually walked up and attacked them.
“The guy comes walking and bang! Bang! Bang!” the victim’s neighbor said. “Nothing. Nothing. No argument.”
Cops arrested Jorge, 37, Thursday morning after he was found carrying a gravity knife at the Parkside Ave. subway station in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn, some 18 miles from where the attack took place.
Jorge was charged with murder and attempted murder after officers connected him to the Bronx stabbing that left Shettlewood dead and his friend wounded.
Surveillance footage shows the suspect casually crossing Davidson Ave. and approaching the victims as they hung out beneath scaffolding.
“He walked up on them holding something in his pocket,” a witness, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Daily News Wednesday. “He started stabbing and stabbing the two out in front of the building.”
Moments later, both victims can be seen sprinting toward W. Tremont Ave. as their attacker appears to stroll in the opposite direction.
Medics rushed both men to St. Barnabas Hospital, where Shettlewood could not be saved. The other man suffered multiple stab wounds to the torso but is expected to survive, cops said.
Shettlewood’s friend lives in the building near W. Tremont Ave. where the 3:30 p.m. attack took place.
Andy spoke to the friend at the hospital. The surviving victim described the stabber’s weapon as “a Rambo knife,” he said.
Andy said he watched the surveillance video and recognized the attacker as a local man who struggled with mental illness.
“(My friend) told me that he stabbed him like 10 times in less than a second,” Andy said. “Around ten times or more. He said, ‘I never seen a person, especially a fat person, move that fast.’ Because the guy’s chubby. It’s crazy.”
Shettlewood worked at an AutoZone and lived alone about a half mile from where he was killed, the super at his building said.
“He was a good person,” said the super, 55, who gave his name as Ryan.
Andy said the victims were old friends from elementary school. He described his wounded neighbor as a father who works as an auto mechanic.
“He’s a very good kid,” said Andy. “He has a whole bunch of kids.”
Jorge has been arrested 15 times in New York City and has been reported as an “emotionally disturbed person” on multiple occasions, police sources said.
His arraignment was pending Thursday.