Failed by cops and neglected by NYCHA, senior citizens in one Brooklyn public housing complex were left alone against a serial killer. GregJDonahue reports
The sixth floor of the Carter G. Woodson Houses in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Photo: Corinne May Botz for New York Magazine This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly.
Situated in the heart of eastern Brooklyn along the border between Brownsville and East New York, the Woodson Houses occupy nearly an entire block in one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. But to the residents who lived there, the complex was a refuge, “a place of peace,” as one family member put it. Over the next decade, though, that feeling would slowly disappear.
After giving up her search, Goodman called 911 and was soon joined in the hallway by two officers from PSA 2, the NYPD Housing Authority division responsible for more than 40 developments across northeastern Brooklyn. “Why are you assuming something’s wrong?” one of the officers asked as the superintendent unlocked McKinney’s door. There was no need to answer.
In early December, Meeks and her brother transferred their mother to a funeral home in Flatbush. Despite their ongoing concern over the lack of an investigation, they wanted to give her a proper burial. But as the funeral director was dressing McKinney’s body in the gray suit her family had chosen for the service, he felt something peculiar on the back left side of her neck — long and thin, as if the skin had split open.
Still, Brust was able to draw up a shortlist of suspects. At the top was one of Woodson’s unofficial handymen, who went by Peebles and had removed McKinney’s air conditioner the weekend she died. Peebles had an alibi and was cleared. Brust also took a close look at Leon Gavin, a.k.a. Music Man, who had been identified on security-camera footage escorting McKinney to a bank in Downtown Brooklyn.
The security desk at Woodson Houses. Photo: Corinne May Botz for New York Magazine. The security desk at Woodson Houses. Photo: Corinne May Botz for New York Magazine. Other, more formal efforts to secure the complex were less successful. Diane Johnson, a ninth-floor resident trained in eldercare, was sworn in as Woodson’s tenant-association president in 2017 and almost immediately began lobbying NYCHA to install closed-circuit-television cameras throughout the complex.
The worst part was the feeling that her concerns weren’t even being heard. At one meeting, Curtis Cabell, the chief of operations of NYCHA’s safety-and-security division, tried to pin the blame for Woodson’s shortcomings on Johnson herself. “The buck stops with you,” she remembered him saying before Barron’s chief of staff cut him off. At the next meeting, Cabell didn’t bother to show up.
When James opened the door slightly to see who was there, a strange man stuck his head through the crack and peered into the apartment. The man never came in, but Darrin, who was sitting on the couch, locked eyes with him long enough to feel a twinge of anxiety course through his body. “I will never, never forget that man’s face,” he would later say. When he asked his grandmother who the man was, she waved off the question and said he was just a friend. Darrin didn’t press it.
Johnson turned to an NYPD community-affairs officer who was lingering nearby and told her that Darrin had ID’d Kevin, who had just returned to the building. The officer barely responded. Taken on its own, Kevin’s presence at James’s door that night wasn’t enough to incriminate him; he was knocking on doors all the time looking for handouts. What Johnson couldn’t fathom was the way the officer had so easily brushed her off.
Rodriguez struck an almost apologetic tone. “Unfortunately, there are no cameras to this day over at Woodson,” he explained, reading in part from a prepared statement. He did, however, have some good news to offer. He assured the council that, in fact, a CCTV system had already been approved, and following James’s murder, the installation was being expedited. “We have a total of $680,000 to make this thing happen,” he added later.
After that, the Woodson Houses felt like a development under siege. Feliciano, whose son had taken to texting her every day, vowed never to leave the building on her own. “If I go out, I go with somebody so that we could defend ourselves,” she told me. Other tenants simply refused to open their doors, sometimes even to take out the trash. “It was terrifying,” Williams said. “It was a whole other level.
Despite her misgivings, Johnson struggled with the notion that he could actually be a killer. It was true that he had an intimidating look, but he also had a softer side. He always added a Ms. before calling female tenants by their first names and was known to travel long distances across the city to help elderly residents purchase the right TV. He had even installed Johnson’s own washing machine when she first moved in.
Johnson said she was getting off the elevator on the ninth floor a few months after Music Man died when Kevin, ice pick in hand, suddenly stepped in front of the sliding doors, blocking her exit. For a brief moment, he was mere inches from her face. Then, without a word, he retreated back down the hall. She believed he had planned to “stick” her, and she credited the caretaker who had joined her on the ride with saving her life.
The slaying sent the Woodson Houses into a tailspin. “You don’t think it can go any higher,” Williams said of the fear that had consumed the development over the previous two years. This time, at least, it wouldn’t last. A week later, Williams was returning home after receiving her first vaccine shot when she saw a half-dozen news crews gathering in the courtyard outside the main tower. She asked one of the caretakers what was happening. “They found the serial killer,” the caretaker responded.
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