Police units respond on scene.Photo: Matt Gush/Getty
A woman in Far Rockaway, Queens, was arrested Saturday after police say she fatally stabbed her neighbor in their beachfront apartment building.
The New York City Police Department confirmed to PEOPLE that officers responded just before midnight to a call of an assault in progress and found Jessica Britt, 33, with stab wounds to the chest.
New York Daily Newsreported that the suspect, Evelyn Cruz, 48, was known around her building as the “monster.”
“They don’t call me a monster for nothing,” Cruz reportedly declared while threatening a neighbor last June, according to theDaily News. “Do you want a problem?”
Cruz is being charged with murder and possession of a weapon.
The Far Rockaway resident had previously been reported to police for violent incidents with neighbors, including a 2019 menacing charge in which Cruz allegedly threatened to cut a neighbor with a razor blade, NYPD confirmed to PEOPLE.
Six months before that incident, she was arrested on an assault charge for allegedly slashing the neck of another neighbor.
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Thomas said that Cruz had previously attacked his apartment door with a baseball bat, among other alleged acts of violence and threats.
“This is an ongoing issue that should have been handled a long, long, long time ago,” Thomas told theDaily News. “I’ve told them that no one’s going to do something until someone is killed.”
Blue told theDaily Newsthat the alleged knife attack took only moments, a tragic ending to nearly two years of conflict between the couple and Cruz.
“I’m still waiting for her to walk in the door,” Blue said. “[Cruz] deserves to rot in jail. The whole time I’ve been living in this building, everybody called her ‘Monster.'”
It’s unclear if Cruz has retained an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
source: people.com
