BOERUM HILL, Brooklyn (PIX11) – A Brooklyn man has been charged with murder for allegedly stabbing to death an 83-year-old man in the elevator of an apartment building, police said.
Joevani Vale, 26, was arrested and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon in connection to the death of Ramon Cintron this past Saturday, according to the NYPD. Vale is accused of fatally stabbing the 83-year-old Cintron inside an elevator at the Wyckoff Gardens NYCHA building at 185 Nevins St. in Boerum Hill.
Vale also allegedly slashed a 31-year-old woman in the thigh near 134 Nevins St., about an hour before Cintron’s death.
Vale was arrested after he went to a Brooklyn hospital on Monday for a psychiatric evaluation, police said. Vale’s relative told hospital staff he was the man police were searching for in connection to Cintron’s death and the slashing.
Residents of Wyckoff Gardens told PIX11 News that Vale had a history of terrorizing the building where he had lived.
“The building knew that [Vale] had issues,” said Robert Crispin, a Wyckoff Gardens resident. “This wasn’t the first time that he got into a situation where he hurt someone in the building with cuts or slashings.”
Vale had three prior arrests, including for assault and forcible touching, according to police.
Cintron had lived in the NYCHA complex in Brooklyn for close to 40 years before his death.
“I started crying. I broke down when his daughter called me,” said one neighbor who wished to remain anonymous. “I said no, not him. Why would anyone do that to him? He was amazing.”
Cintron was loved by many in the building and was called “Flaco,” a nickname meaning skinny in Spanish.
Linwood Garret, who lives in the building, was devastated when he heard about the death of Cintron, who was his upstairs neighbor.
“He was a beautiful person … I would see him sit there every morning right there in that corner,” Garret said. “He lived on the 19th floor. I lived on the 18th floor, and when all this happened I didn’t hear anything. He didn’t bother anybody. He was a nice little old man.”
PIX11’s Kiran Dhillon, Amy Yensi and Magee Hickey contributed to this report.
