The serial stabber who attacked three homeless men, one fatally, while they slept in 2022 was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on Wednesday.
Trevon Murphy, 42, was charged with murder and attempted murder for the terrifying summer spree, which spanned nearly a week.
“While today’s sentence will not bring back an innocent life lost and cannot undo the pain two New Yorkers face, I hope it provides a sense of comfort and closure,” Manhattan District Attorney Bragg said in a statement.
Murphy first struck July 5, when he attacked a 34-year-old man asleep on a bench inside Hudson River Greenway Park near W. 11th St. and West St. around 3:05 a.m., officials said.
homeless
Barry Williams/for New York Daily News Hudson River Greenway Park near W. 11th St. and West St. in Manhattan.
The victim told medics he awoke to a sharp pain in his stomach and saw a man running away. He staggered seven blocks through the park for help but soon after died at Bellevue Hospital.
Four days later, on July 9, Murphy attacked 59-year-old Abimael Rolon as the man slept on a bench near Madison Ave. and E. 49th St. around 10 p.m., stabbing him in the abdomen with a kitchen knife.
On July 11, he stabbed another man in the abdomen as he slept in a basketball court near the corner of E. 96th St. and First Ave. around 3:33 a.m., prosecutors said.
The later two victims survived the attacks.
Murphy was arrested July 13 when an ex-city Department of Correction officer spotted him at a Harlem bus stop. The attacker later told police he targeted the lower abdomens of his victims because the area is the “stabber’s choice.”
Murphy, who is also homeless, deliberately chose a serrated blade capable of gutting his victims, officials said.
The crazed stabber pleaded guilty to the charges in January but later backtracked, with his attorney claiming he was was “severely unmedicated and mentally ill” during the plea agreement.
