NEW YORK, June 5 (UPI) -- The man suspected of killing a 6-year-old boy in a New York City housing project may have killed a young woman and a homeless man as well, investigators say.
Daniel St. Hubert, 27, was arrested Wednesday, three days after Prince Joshua "P.J." Avitto was stabbed in an elevator at the Boulevard Houses in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood. P.J.'s playmate, a 7-year-old girl, was seriously wounded in the attack.
St. Hubert was released from prison May 23 after serving a sentence for attempted murder and aggravated assault. New York detectives are trying to determine if he killed an 18-year-old college student who was stabbed Friday near the Boulevard Houses and a homeless man who was killed on a subway platform in Manhattan.
Police sources told the New York Daily News that officers who stopped St. Hubert for public urination on Wednesday in Brooklyn did not recognize him, even though he had become the target of the investigation and flyers with his picture had been distributed throughout the city. They released him because St. Hubert, who said he did not know what he had done was illegal, had proper identification.
A few hours later, St. Hubert was found near his mother's house in Queens. Officers said he had a knife that could have been used in the elevator attack.
Sources told the News that two homeless men who witnessed the early morning stabbing on May 28 in the Chelsea neighborhood identified St. Hubert as the killer.
