A subway push incident that led to the horrific death of an Indian immigrant in Sunnyside saddened and frightened straphangers, and now the woman police say may be responsible for the murder of 46-year-old Sunando Sen is in custody.
At about 8 PM Thursday, horrified commuters at the 40th Street station in Queens watched as a woman, seemingly at random and mumbling to herself , shoved the businessman in front of an oncoming 7 train. Sen died of his injuries at the station, and despite several travelers giving chase, the woman — described by witnesses as a twenty-something Hispanic female of short but heavy-set stature — was able to escape in the crowds.
After the man was pushed in front of the train and his killer slipped into the throngs outside the station, many New Yorkers worried that the perpetrator of the crime, perhaps unstable, was wandering around the streets — and Mayor Bloomberg urged New Yorkers not to alter their routines out of fear. Police scoured the area of the brazen murder to find footage of the woman before or after the incident, releasing a surveillance video clip soon afterwards showing the female believed to be responsible for Sen’s death.
A spokesman for the NYPD indicated that the woman in custody in connection with the man pushed in front of the train is 31, and not in her twenties as originally suspected. Yahoo ! reports:
“Detectives questioned her but aren’t releasing the 31-year-old suspect’s name until she is formally charged, NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said in a brief statement. Among other things, investigators were arranging for witnesses to positively identify the woman in custody as the attacker, police said.”
However, the New York Daily News reports that the woman in custody is said to have admitted responsibility for the act:
“The 31-year-old woman made statements implicating herself in the crime while being grilled by detectives at the 112th Precinct stationhouse in Forest Hills after police were tipped off to her identity, the sources said.”
Police did not say when more information on the woman suspected of pushing Sen in front of the train would be released.
