A homeless NYC man, Randy Santos, was arrested in 2019 over the murder of four men and possession of [illegal substances]. He was captured on surveillance footage bludgeoning people to death while they were sleeping on the streets. Two other victims were critically injured during the attacks.
Now his attorney has argued that he is not responsible for the murders, but he has a severe mental illness, and that clouded his judgment. Santos claimed voices told him to kill forty people to save his life. He became homeless after his mother threw him out of the house years before the murders. She said he was violent, but she didn’t think he’d murder someone.
He kept hitting the skulls of the four men in question, who were sleeping in Chinatown, Manhattan. He killed them with a metal pipe, which was covered in blood by the end of the attack. The police were called to the scene as the accused was spotted with the pipe covered in blood. Even his hair was covered in blood, scaring people away.
Man accused of killing 4 homeless men heard voices telling him to ‘kill 40 people’ or die — as trial finally gets underway https://t.co/nVkHMoiRua pic.twitter.com/SpYJrCqrQj
— New York Post (@nypost) January 27, 2026
Santos suffers from schizophrenia, which was diagnosed a few months before he killed these men. They were between the ages of 39 and 83. His attorney claimed that he cannot be held criminally responsible. Instead of pleading guilty and receiving a prison sentence, he has resorted to a psychiatric defense. He claimed to be not guilty of the attempted murder of the other two injured victims.
The attorney stated, “He needed the voices to stop; he needed to save his life and didn’t see another way out because of the schizophrenia. The defense does not dispute what happened in this case. We dispute what was in his mind at the time of the crime.”
If he is convicted, he will spend his life in jail. However, if his attorney wins the case, he will be committed to a psychiatric facility.
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Even after his arrest, he has been to psychiatric wards for checkups and treatments. The jury has argued that Santos was aware of his actions. It can be seen in the footage that he was carrying a 4-foot-long metal pipe and bashing it repeatedly on the victims’ heads.
Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alfred Peterson said, “He knew exactly what he was doing and the consequences of what he was doing — that he was killing these men.” He further added that Santos looked around to not get caught and see if the coast was clear before the murders.
Peterson added that Santos knew that he was wrong since he was looking for pedestrians and left the place to avoid witnesses. Before the murders, Santos had been arrested six times for violent behavior.
