A Brooklyn man has been arrested in the chilling death of an elderly Manhattan woman who was found bound and gagged in her Upper West Side apartment.
Lashawn Mackey, 47, of Bergen Street was charged Saturday afternoon with murder, attempted murder and two counts of burglary in the death of Maria Hernandez, 74, police said.
“I’m innocent,” Mackey declared to reporters as he was led by detectives out of the 20th Precinct.
“I’m innocent and tell them…look for the DNA results at the scene of the crime. Ask them for it. Ask them. Please!” he said from the back of a police vehicle before detectives drove him away.
Hernandez’s sister, Maria Terrero, found her sibling’s battered body at about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday after going to check on her.
Hernandez was left lying face-down on the bedroom floor of her third-floor unit on West 83rd Street.
The residence had been ransacked, police and sources said. The Medical Examiner determined Hernandez died of asphyxia.
She was found with fractures and bruising on her body, police sources said. Earlier Saturday, two cops stood at the victim’s apartment door.
Mackey was a “temporary employee” of Hernandez’s building and may have been working through a program that finds jobs for formerly incarcerated individuals unable to find work elsewhere, a source said.
“He’s a very bad guy,” the source added.
The superintendent of Hernandez’s building told The Post Friday someone “used a hammer and a crowbar” to get into the basement to steal the security footage.
A young woman — who was entering the building carrying a large bag that appeared to contain clothing — choked back tears when asked if she was related to the victim.“It’s very, very hard for me and my family. We’ve already talked to the police and the district attorney. I don’t want to talk anymore,” the woman said, without identifying herself.
One resident believes Hernandez spent her final hours Wednesday attending “a show with her sister” in the afternoon — perhaps a Broadway matinee — before returning to her apartment.
“A neighbor upstairs was having a birthday party and invited her. She [Hernandez] said she was tired and was drinking soup,” the resident explained.
The resident added that the upstairs neighbor “came down with a slice of cake” for Hernandez around 6 p.m.
Prior to the suspect’s arrest, Ballamoussa Kourouma, 25, a student who has lived in the building all his life, fondly recalled that Hernandez “got along with everybody. She was really nice.”
He added: “It is sad. It is unfortunate. It’s crazy how it went down. I would have never thought, to be honest, that that would happen here – never ever, not here.”
