The man accused of killing three people in a gruesome stabbing on Monday had been released from New York City jail a month earlier and was out on bail for other alleged crimes in New Jersey, records showed.
Just hours after 51-year-old Ramon Rivera was taken into custody following the trio of murders, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was already wondering why the homeless man was walking free.
“He was convicted a few months ago, and there’s a real question we need to look at: why he was walking the streets, and he has some serious mental health issues that should have been investigated,” Adams told reporters Monday.
Rivera has now been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, police said.
He was released from a New York City jail on Oct. 17 on burglary and assault charges, records showed. On the day he was released, Rivera allegedly committed grand larceny by stealing property from a Manhattan store, records showed.
And earlier this year, Rivera was charged with multiple crimes in neighboring New Jersey, according to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office.
Ramon Rivera, a suspect in several stabbings, is escorted by police in New York on Monday.
He was accused of breaking into a CBD store, the Green Room, on Jan. 11 and stealing “mason jars CBD canister and other items,” according to a grand jury indictment.
Four days later, Rivera allegedly took “phones and other electronics” from the Hi Wireless store in Union City, according to another indictment.
In total, Rivera has been arrested eight times in New York City in the past year, court records show. He has also been arrested in Ohio and Florida.
“The Criminal Justice Reform Act provides an outline for when a suspect should be held or released pending prosecution,” a spokesperson for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement. “Given the nature of these crimes, the suspect was released under supervision pending trial.
Rivera was arrested after three people were killed in attacks that police called “unprovoked.”
Angel Lata Landi, a 36-year-old construction worker from Peekskill, was attacked at 8:22 a.m. ET near his workplace at 444 W. 19th St., police said.
Then at 10:27 a.m., a 67-year-old man was stabbed to death while fishing in the East River near 500 E. 30th St., about a 2.3-mile, 52-minute walk from where Landi was attacked. The fisherman was not immediately identified pending notification from his family.
The third victim was fatally stabbed at 10:55 a.m. near East 42nd Street and First Avenue, about a three-quarter mile and 15-minute walk from the second murder. That victim was identified as Wilma Augustin, a 36-year-old woman living in Manhattan.
Augustin had an eight-year-old child, according to Mayor Adams, who hinted that the murdered mother may have been a new U.S. resident.
“One person is fishing on FDR Drive and he is 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?’
Augustin’s public address appeared to be a shelter for newly arrived migrants, although Adams stopped short of identifying the victim as a migrant.
“We have to investigate that, we are still trying to figure out what exactly is going on and what exactly happened,” he told reporters.
Rivera was arrested a short time later after the attack on Augustin, police said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
