By ROBERT D. McFADDEN 
NY TIMES
A fugitive with a knife, who the police said had left behind a calamity of murders and broken lives in Brooklyn, was captured by officers at Times Square on Saturday morning after stabbing another victim on a subway train near there, investigators said.
It was the culmination of a roller coaster of violence that included three fatal stabbings; a hit-and-run homicide; two other stabbings; four auto thefts, including two carjackings; death threats against several other people who got in the way; a dangerous manhunt by hundreds of police officers; and for millions of New Yorkers an around-the-clock ordeal of a killer on the loose in the city.
The all-night manhunt that led to several sightings in Brooklyn and Manhattan and to a cat-and-mouse chase through dark subway tunnels ended about 8:30 a.m., when the suspect, Maksim Gelman, 23, climbed up from the tracks, boarded a northbound No. 3 train and, the police said, stabbed a male passenger.
Witnesses on the train said it had pulled out of Pennsylvania Station and rolled north, but had stopped suddenly as it approached the Times Square station. They told of panic as the power went off and officers with flashlights and drawn guns ran through the cars toward the front where the attack had taken place, and riders ran back through the cars, fleeing the violence.
“At first I thought it was just a mechanical problem, and then we heard all these people saying there’d been a stabbing in one of the cars,” said Danielle Nugent, 23, a graduate student at Quinnipiac University who was in town to run a race in Riverside Park.
Moments after the stabbing, officers closed in and Mr. Gelman was handcuffed and taken into custody by two officers in the station at 40th Street and Seventh Avenue. Details of his arrest and the subway stabbing were sketchy. But the police said the victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. His family said he was in stable condition.
The arrest was the climax of a 30-hour drama in which, investigators said, Mr. Gelman killed his mother’s companion and his former girlfriend and her mother in knife attacks at two apartments in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, then commandeered a car, stabbed the driver, then fatally struck a pedestrian and sped away.
The swirl of violence stunned the Russian community in Sheepshead Bay, where Mr. Gelman had lived for years and was known to neighbors as a troubled man with an arrest record and a reputation for a hair-trigger temper. Investigators said his last rage may have been touched off by the refusal of his mother’s companion, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, a private ambulette driver, to let him use his Lexus.
In the apartment at 2830 East 27th Street, near Emmons Avenue, where they lived with Mr. Gelman’s mother, Svetlana Gelman, 48, the screaming two-minute argument ended at 5:09 a.m. on Friday, when, the police said, the young man attacked Mr. Kuznetsov with a kitchen knife, stabbing him numerous times.
The police were called, but by the time they arrived, Mr. Gelman had sped away in the gray 2004 Lexus and disappeared. The police released a picture of the 6-foot, 170-pound fugitive that was posted on news Web sites and blogs.
About 10 a.m., the police said, he entered the apartment of his former girlfriend, Yelena Bulchenko, 20, and her mother, Anna Bulchenko, 56, at 2466 East 24th Street, near Avenue Y. The younger woman was not there, but an argument with her mother followed. Mr. Gelman fatally stabbed the older woman a dozen times, investigators said.
Investigators said he then waited in the apartment for more than six hours until Yelena Bulchenko arrived home about 4:15 p.m. After a confrontation, he followed her outside and attacked her with his knife. She, too, was stabbed to death, the victim of a dozen wounds, investigators said.
“She was a sweet girl,” said Phil Kiernan, 36. “I knew her since she was young.” He recalled seeing Yelena Bulchenko’s body lying on the ground, with Mr. Gelman standing over her. “He’s screaming,” Mr. Kiernan said. “He’s killing her.” He said she had been stabbed in the neck. “I didn’t know who it was at first,” he said. “You know right away a neck wound is bad.”
Mr. Gelman sped away in the Lexus, the police said, but he apparently found his way blocked by a dark green Pontiac Bonneville at East 24th Street and Avenue U. The police said he rammed the rear of the Bonneville, then stormed out and dragged the driver, Arthur DiCrescento, 60, out of his vehicle and stabbed him in the chest.
Mr. Gelman then commandeered the Bonneville and drove north on Ocean Avenue. He struck a 62-year-old man, Stephen Tannenbaum, crossing Avenue R. The victim was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he died overnight. Mr. DiCrescento was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, and was reported in stable condition Friday night.
The violence touched off an all-night manhunt for Mr. Gelman. About 8 p.m. Friday, the search, which involved hundreds of officers and a number of helicopters, centered on a neighborhood at East 18th Street near Avenue R, in Brooklyn, where Mr. Gelman was reported to have been seen hiding in a garage. He was not found.
About 9:15 p.m., the Bonneville he had commandeered was found on 15th Street between Avenues H and I in Midwood, with the engine still running.
Mr. Gelman was next seen about 1 a.m. Saturday at Rochester Avenue and St. Johns Place in the Crown Heights section, where, the police said, he hailed a livery cab driven by Fitz Fullerton, 55. Mr. Gelman and Mr. Fullerton struggled, and the cab struck another vehicle.
The police said Mr. Gelman jumped out of the livery cab and fled. Minutes later, the police said he attacked another motorist, Shelden Pottinger, 25, in front of a church on Eastern Parkway near Rockaway Avenue. Threatening the driver with a knife, the police said, he pulled him out and drove off in the man’s car, a black 2001 Nissan Maxima. The car was later found abandoned in Queens.
Later in the morning, Mr. Gelman apparently entered the subway system. Following reports of a man seen in the subway tunnels, apparently walking along tracks and third-rail coverings, the police began scouring the Nos. 2 and 3 lines running from Brooklyn into Manhattan, walking along the tracks and riding in slow-moving subway trains.
The search led to the area around Pennsylvania Station shortly before 8:30 a.m., and then to a northbound No. 3 express that had just pulled out, heading for Times Square.
Mr. Gelman was believed to have climbed into the train from the tracks. The stabbing of the passenger apparently occurred as the train moved between the two stations. Passengers on the train told of riders, some leaving bloody footprints, rushing in panic toward the rear cars, and the police with drawn guns rushing toward the violence.
John Bodensiek, 53, a photographer from Princeton, N.J., was in the second car. He said that a scuffle had broken out in the first car moments after it pulled out of Pennsylvania Station heading uptown. He said other passengers told him later that Mr. Gelman had barged into the lead car claiming to be a police officer. When he was finally let off the train later, Mr. Bodensiek said, he glanced into the lead car.
“In the middle of the floor was just a pool of blood,” he said.
Dinesh Patel, 54, who operates a newsstand in the Times Square station, said he saw about 100 people running up the stairs from the platforms, heading for the turnstiles. He said he also saw 10 to 15 police officers, some with machine guns, and two men carrying a stretcher. He said people were shouting: “Go out! Go out!”
“I thought something, terrorism, something like that,” Mr. Patel said.
Soon afterward, all the staircases to the platforms for the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 trains were closed off with yellow police tape, and a confusion of people trying to make connections ensued.
Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, C. J. Hughes, Tim Stelloh and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford.
NY TIMESA fugitive with a knife, who the police said had left behind a calamity of murders and broken lives in Brooklyn, was captured by officers at Times Square on Saturday morning after stabbing another victim on a subway train near there, investigators said.
It was the culmination of a roller coaster of violence that included three fatal stabbings; a hit-and-run homicide; two other stabbings; four auto thefts, including two carjackings; death threats against several other people who got in the way; a dangerous manhunt by hundreds of police officers; and for millions of New Yorkers an around-the-clock ordeal of a killer on the loose in the city.
The all-night manhunt that led to several sightings in Brooklyn and Manhattan and to a cat-and-mouse chase through dark subway tunnels ended about 8:30 a.m., when the suspect, Maksim Gelman, 23, climbed up from the tracks, boarded a northbound No. 3 train and, the police said, stabbed a male passenger.
Witnesses on the train said it had pulled out of Pennsylvania Station and rolled north, but had stopped suddenly as it approached the Times Square station. They told of panic as the power went off and officers with flashlights and drawn guns ran through the cars toward the front where the attack had taken place, and riders ran back through the cars, fleeing the violence.
“At first I thought it was just a mechanical problem, and then we heard all these people saying there’d been a stabbing in one of the cars,” said Danielle Nugent, 23, a graduate student at Quinnipiac University who was in town to run a race in Riverside Park.
Moments after the stabbing, officers closed in and Mr. Gelman was handcuffed and taken into custody by two officers in the station at 40th Street and Seventh Avenue. Details of his arrest and the subway stabbing were sketchy. But the police said the victim was taken to Bellevue Hospital Center. His family said he was in stable condition.
The arrest was the climax of a 30-hour drama in which, investigators said, Mr. Gelman killed his mother’s companion and his former girlfriend and her mother in knife attacks at two apartments in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, then commandeered a car, stabbed the driver, then fatally struck a pedestrian and sped away.
The swirl of violence stunned the Russian community in Sheepshead Bay, where Mr. Gelman had lived for years and was known to neighbors as a troubled man with an arrest record and a reputation for a hair-trigger temper. Investigators said his last rage may have been touched off by the refusal of his mother’s companion, Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, a private ambulette driver, to let him use his Lexus.
In the apartment at 2830 East 27th Street, near Emmons Avenue, where they lived with Mr. Gelman’s mother, Svetlana Gelman, 48, the screaming two-minute argument ended at 5:09 a.m. on Friday, when, the police said, the young man attacked Mr. Kuznetsov with a kitchen knife, stabbing him numerous times.
The police were called, but by the time they arrived, Mr. Gelman had sped away in the gray 2004 Lexus and disappeared. The police released a picture of the 6-foot, 170-pound fugitive that was posted on news Web sites and blogs.
About 10 a.m., the police said, he entered the apartment of his former girlfriend, Yelena Bulchenko, 20, and her mother, Anna Bulchenko, 56, at 2466 East 24th Street, near Avenue Y. The younger woman was not there, but an argument with her mother followed. Mr. Gelman fatally stabbed the older woman a dozen times, investigators said.
Investigators said he then waited in the apartment for more than six hours until Yelena Bulchenko arrived home about 4:15 p.m. After a confrontation, he followed her outside and attacked her with his knife. She, too, was stabbed to death, the victim of a dozen wounds, investigators said.
“She was a sweet girl,” said Phil Kiernan, 36. “I knew her since she was young.” He recalled seeing Yelena Bulchenko’s body lying on the ground, with Mr. Gelman standing over her. “He’s screaming,” Mr. Kiernan said. “He’s killing her.” He said she had been stabbed in the neck. “I didn’t know who it was at first,” he said. “You know right away a neck wound is bad.”
Mr. Gelman sped away in the Lexus, the police said, but he apparently found his way blocked by a dark green Pontiac Bonneville at East 24th Street and Avenue U. The police said he rammed the rear of the Bonneville, then stormed out and dragged the driver, Arthur DiCrescento, 60, out of his vehicle and stabbed him in the chest.
Mr. Gelman then commandeered the Bonneville and drove north on Ocean Avenue. He struck a 62-year-old man, Stephen Tannenbaum, crossing Avenue R. The victim was taken to Kings County Hospital, where he died overnight. Mr. DiCrescento was taken to Lutheran Medical Center, and was reported in stable condition Friday night.
The violence touched off an all-night manhunt for Mr. Gelman. About 8 p.m. Friday, the search, which involved hundreds of officers and a number of helicopters, centered on a neighborhood at East 18th Street near Avenue R, in Brooklyn, where Mr. Gelman was reported to have been seen hiding in a garage. He was not found.
About 9:15 p.m., the Bonneville he had commandeered was found on 15th Street between Avenues H and I in Midwood, with the engine still running.
Mr. Gelman was next seen about 1 a.m. Saturday at Rochester Avenue and St. Johns Place in the Crown Heights section, where, the police said, he hailed a livery cab driven by Fitz Fullerton, 55. Mr. Gelman and Mr. Fullerton struggled, and the cab struck another vehicle.
The police said Mr. Gelman jumped out of the livery cab and fled. Minutes later, the police said he attacked another motorist, Shelden Pottinger, 25, in front of a church on Eastern Parkway near Rockaway Avenue. Threatening the driver with a knife, the police said, he pulled him out and drove off in the man’s car, a black 2001 Nissan Maxima. The car was later found abandoned in Queens.
Later in the morning, Mr. Gelman apparently entered the subway system. Following reports of a man seen in the subway tunnels, apparently walking along tracks and third-rail coverings, the police began scouring the Nos. 2 and 3 lines running from Brooklyn into Manhattan, walking along the tracks and riding in slow-moving subway trains.
The search led to the area around Pennsylvania Station shortly before 8:30 a.m., and then to a northbound No. 3 express that had just pulled out, heading for Times Square.
Mr. Gelman was believed to have climbed into the train from the tracks. The stabbing of the passenger apparently occurred as the train moved between the two stations. Passengers on the train told of riders, some leaving bloody footprints, rushing in panic toward the rear cars, and the police with drawn guns rushing toward the violence.
John Bodensiek, 53, a photographer from Princeton, N.J., was in the second car. He said that a scuffle had broken out in the first car moments after it pulled out of Pennsylvania Station heading uptown. He said other passengers told him later that Mr. Gelman had barged into the lead car claiming to be a police officer. When he was finally let off the train later, Mr. Bodensiek said, he glanced into the lead car.
“In the middle of the floor was just a pool of blood,” he said.
Dinesh Patel, 54, who operates a newsstand in the Times Square station, said he saw about 100 people running up the stairs from the platforms, heading for the turnstiles. He said he also saw 10 to 15 police officers, some with machine guns, and two men carrying a stretcher. He said people were shouting: “Go out! Go out!”
“I thought something, terrorism, something like that,” Mr. Patel said.
Soon afterward, all the staircases to the platforms for the Nos. 1, 2 and 3 trains were closed off with yellow police tape, and a confusion of people trying to make connections ensued.
Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, C. J. Hughes, Tim Stelloh and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford.
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