The “A-train Ripper” is in custody, multiple law enforcement sources told The Post Saturday night.
The knife-wielding madman is wanted in a gruesome subway attack that killed two homeless people and two others who were chopped along the A train line and picked up in Upper Manhattan, the sources said.
His shoes were still covered in blood from his victims when he was taken into custody – and he was still in possession of the bloodied knife, a source added.
The aforementioned suspect was in custody at the 34th Precinct in Washington Heights, the sources said.
The bloodshed sparked a protest for safer subways, and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea responded, announcing an “increase” of 500 additional agents for the department’s Transit Office to be deployed immediately in the city.
The attack began Friday morning, not far from where the alleged stabbing was caught, authorities said.
At 11:30 a.m., a 67-year-old man was stabbed as he pushed his walker across the south platform of the 181st Street station of the A train in Washington Heights.
“I am going to kill you!” he told police his attacker was screaming, according to sources. He was stabbed in the right knee and left buttock; although he had to undergo surgery, he is expected to survive the attack.
It is tentatively believed that that attack is related to three consecutive attacks.
Twelve hours later, at 11:29 PM on Friday, a man was found stabbed to death but still slumped in his seat on an A train at Mott Avenue station in Far Rockaway.
He sustained stab wounds to his neck and torso and was pronounced dead on the spot.
About two hours later, at 1:15 a.m. Saturday, a 44-year-old woman was found dead, again in a pool of blood, under her subway seat on an A train at 207th Street station in Inwood.
She had been stabbed all over her body.
Afterwards, Saturday at 1:28 am, a 43-year-old man was arbitrarily stabbed while sleeping in a stairwell at the A train station on West 181st Street.
He stumbled across to a nearby bank on West 181st Street, but collapsed before entering the vestibule, police said.
The victim is being treated in a regional hospital for four stab wounds to his back and is in a stable condition.
The 44-year-old woman was taken to New York Presbyterian-Allen Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to authorities.
It’s the worst stabbing on the subway since June 2006, when a homeless serial killer injured four people in a 13-hour rampage on trains in Harlem and Rockefeller Center. His victims all survived.
And it’s the worst mass violence against homeless people since 2019, when four homeless men were clubbed to death in their sleep one night in Manhattan’s Chinatown.
Mayor de Blasio recently dismissed public concern from NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea over a recent spate of subway attacks, including a strapping hanger being shoved on the rails.
Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello