NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A man was arrested Thursday in connection with the fatal shooting of an Upper East Side deli worker last week, Mayor Eric Adams and police said — after a manhunt for the serial robber in a hazmat suit alleged to be responsible for the killing.
The 39-year-old man, who has three prior arrests, was picked up by members of the NYPD's Regional Fugitive Task Force in the Bronx, police said at a briefing Thursday afternoon. Charges are pending.
The bust came hours after police revealed Thursday that detectives had recovered two suits in the Bronx and Brooklyn that they believe were discarded by the spree thief who's the prime suspect in Friday’s deli murder.
Detectives recovered one of the white Tyvek suits behind apartments at 1311 Newkirk Ave. in Flatbush, NYPD Chief of Detectives James Essig told 1010 WINS. The outfit was found with phones and other proceeds from the suspect's first known robbery at a bagel shop two blocks away on Feb. 25.
The other suit was found Tuesday night behind a building near Park Avenue and E. 158th Street at the Concourse Village apartments, according to police.
“They were left in the backyard,” Essig said. “Just out in the open in the backyards of these locations.”
The clothing was being processed for fingerprints and DNA evidence, police said earlier Thursday.
On Wednesday, alarmed bodega owners and workers rallied to demand more safety, including increased penalties for people who attack them.
“We worry every day, you know?” worker Juan Garcia said at the rally. “We know we’re in danger every day. And it’s very, very hard to work like that. But we can’t do nothing. We need to work.”
Fernando Mateo, of the United Bodegas of America, said part of the problem these days is customers who are masked and hooded.
“We’re talking about all those people that hoodie up, that cover their entire face so that the police department cannot identify them when they commit a crime,” Mateo said.
In recent days, NYPD brass and Mayor Eric Adams echoed that sentiment, saying customers should drop their masks before entering businesses.
The Upper East Side killer was wearing a white mask and black gloves in addition to the head-to-toe hazmat jumpsuit when he fatally shot a 67-year-old clerk in the head inside Daona Deli at East 81st Street and Third Avenue around 11:30 p.m. Friday, police said.
Investigators believe the suspect donned the getup in several other robberies in Brooklyn and the Bronx since late February.
On Feb. 25, a bagel shop on Foster Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn, was robbed at gunpoint of more than $200. Then on March 1, a deli on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint was held up by a gunman who stole $1,500 and a carton of cigarettes. No injuries were reported in those robberies.
The crook-turned-killer fatally shot the Upper East Side clerk late Friday before traveling by scooter to the Bronx via the 145th Street Bridge and robbing a deli on Melrose Avenue—about four blocks away from where one of the hazmat suits was found by cops Tuesday.
While the suspect vanished after that robbery, the NYPD tracked his movements using surveillance video. The department had put up a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect.
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