Arrest In Yonkers Homicide Reveals Serial Killer

Serendipity can often help law enforcement crack cases that have to date been unsolved. This is one of those possible situations.

Police in Yonkers stumbled upon a murder scene when they sought a 63 year old man, Lucius Crawford, to question him about two other homicides.

Upon entering the apartment at 7-9 Beekman Avenue, the detectives discovered under a sheet on the suspect’s bed the body of a 41-year woman, who had been stabbed nine times in the chest. The suspect’s parole tracking ankle bracelet had been removed and was found in the apartment. The NYPD detectives notified the Mount Vernon police, and through joint efforts by the three police departments, local authorities captured the suspect, Lucius Crawford, M/B/60, three hours later at 4:05 p.m. at Hussey Road and East Grand Street in Mount Vernon.

Crawford subsequently confessed to detectives of three jurisdictions to the murders of the Mount Vernon woman; a Yonkers woman, Laronda Shealy, stabbed to death September 13, 1993; and to the October 20, 1993 murder of Nella West, 38, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. She had been stabbed multiple times in the head, face, and torso, a sustained a broken eye socket and crushed skull. Crawford has been charged with murder by Westchester authorities.

This makes the guy a serial killer by any definition, but it's the MO that led the police to notify Long Island police authorities about his possible connection to the unsolved Gilgo Beach murders. At least 8 victims were recovered in the search for Shannon Gilbert and all appeared to be homicide victims.

Yet Suffolk County cops say that Crawford doesn't appear to have any involvement in the Gilgo Beach murders.