The homeless man who was knifed to death in a Hell’s Kitchen apartment had been trying to calm the suspect down after he attacked a woman, according to officials.
Victim John Carlos Mesa, 26, rushed to the W. 47th St. building near Ninth Ave. on Wednesday afternoon to confront and calm down Carlos Andres Delgado Lopez after he struck, stabbed and threw to the ground a 35-year-old woman inside the third-floor apartment, according to a criminal complaint.
The woman, who has not been identified, made a phone call to Mesa as she barricaded herself inside the place’s bedroom during the attack, as Delgado Lopez tried to break into the bedroom by pushing and pounding on the door, according to the complaint.
Delgado Lopez, 31, stabbed Mesa with a large black knife during the confrontation, leaving two deep stab wounds in his torso. Mesa fled as he bled out, leaving a gruesome trail of blood from the third floor all the way to the building’s front stoop.
A 25-year-old building tenant who saw Mesa “covered in blood” outside the place moments after the Wednesday afternoon stabbing said her roommate told her she heard Mesa screaming in the hallway after the attack.
“Call the authorities! Call the authorities!” Mesa screamed as he ran down the hall, the roommate said. “Someone’s trying to kill me!”
Medics rushed both victims to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, where Mesa died. The wounded woman was expected to survive.
“I saw (him) stumble out of the building and down the stoop,” said the tenant, who asked not to be named. “He was on the phone, and he just seemed like he was talking with a friend. He wasn’t insanely screaming for help or anything.”
As the woman drew closer, she could clearly see Mesa’s shirt was soaked with blood.
“I noted the blood trailing practically to my apartment, and that’s when I freaked out because my roommate was home. I was like, ‘Is she OK?’”
A second tenant, Jorge Bender, told WABC Eyewitness News that he helped put pressure on Mesa’s wound and called 911 for him.
“From the size of the wound — and I could see some of the tissue hanging out — I suspect it’s a stabbing,” Bender said Thursday. “I (told the 911 operator), ‘The gentleman is distraught, he’s very pale.’ I said, ‘He only speaks Spanish and some English. Just please send an ambulance.’”
Delgado Lopez was charged with murder for killing Mesa and attempted murder for stabbing the woman inside the apartment.
At Delgado-Lopez’s arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday, Judge Jeffrey Gershuny granted prosecutors’ request for him to be ordered held without bail during.
Delgado Lopez knew both of his victims, police sources with knowledge of the case said. It wasn’t immediately clear what sparked the violence.
During a search warrant by police in Delgado Lopez’s apartment, officers recovered the knife used to stab Mesa, cops said. Delgado Lopez gave police a mirandized statement upon arrest, saying that he attacked the woman and stabbed Mesa with a kitchen knife, according to the complaint.