A teen girl sobbed on the stand Wednesday as she recalled the moment her crazed neighbor fatally stabbed her mom’s best friend in the hallway of their Harlem building.
“She stabbed Michelle in the chest and my mom pushed her back, and when my mom pushed her back she started laughing,” the 16-year-old witness told jurors at the murder trial of Ashanti Daniels in Manhattan Supreme Court. “Michelle was gushing so much blood.”
The teen’s mom, Leticia Armstrong, told victim Michelle Kinny not to talk and frantically tried to stanch the spurting with a T-shirt.
“Michelle is saying, ‘Don’t let me die! Don’t let me die!’ and my mom is holding her,” said the shaken witness as tears streamed down her face.
“We thought she was going to make it,” said the girl. “Then Ashanti came back.”
That’s when Daniels repeatedly and maniacally plunged the knife into Kinny’s head, according to Assistant District Attorney Germaine Corprew.
There was so much blood that Armstrong’s white bodysuit had turned completely red, the teen said.
Daniels pursued Kinny’s daughter, Tomiesha Abraham, who had fled into the stairwell, and thrust the knife into her gut, nearly killing her too, Corprew said.
Minutes earlier, Abraham, who was celebrating her 21st birthday with family at Armstrong’s apartment, stepped into the ninth-floor hallway and got into a heated exchange with Daniels.
Abraham stared at Daniels because she’d emerged from her apartment half dressed. “What the f—k you looking at?” Daniels allegedly barked, prosecutors said.
“Who the f—k do you think you’re talking to?” answered Abraham and the fight quickly turned physical.
Hearing the commotion, Abraham’s friends and family, including Kinny, rushed into the hallway to try to defuse the situation.
Daniels’ boyfriend called his pals from another floor to come up and the conflict quickly devolved into a wild brawl.
Daniels went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife then returned to allegedly butcher Kinny for trying to help her daughter.
Corprew said in his opening statement that Daniel may have been tipsy but acted with deliberation and forethought when she stalked Kinney and her Abraham like prey.
Defense lawyer Tom Klein argued that Daniels was “downright blotto drunk” and had completely blacked out.
“Did she intend to kill anyone?” asked Klein in his opening remark. “Or was she in an alcohol-induced fog?”
The trial continues Thursday before Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr.
