Detectives arrived to the apartment in Queens Village Thursday morning to find a 72-year-old man dead with stab wounds and the others unconscious.
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The deceased man's 72-year-old wife, another son in his 30s, and that son's 29-year-old wife, are all in critical condition, and detectives are looking into whether the suspect was attempting some sort of religious ceremony.
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Police have identified the suspect as 30-year-old Jaimie Walker, who lived at the apartment with his parents. Investigators are trying to figure what caused him to snap and harm his family.
Officers cordoned off the three-story building on Hempstead Avenue for most of the day, an investigation that started with a 911 call around 6:30 a.m. for an emotionally disturbed person.
"Officers observed the man in the hallway acting very incoherently," NYPD Assistant Chief Joe Kenney said. "He made statements he had injured somebody inside the apartment. Emergency service unit officers were called to the scene and they made entry into the apartment, where they discovered an unresponsive 72-year-old male who was lying on the floor of the bathroom with what appeared to be multiple stab wounds about the body."
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The father was pronounced dead at the scene.
"We can see a pair of scissors lying in the hallway," Kenney said. "It's undetermined if that was the murder weapon."
The three other victims were found in the living room, all laid out on a mattress, alive but unconscious.
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Investigators at first suspected carbon monoxide poisoning, but they later ruled it out and said further analysis showed they were possibly poisoned.
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"They are being treated at a local hospital," Kenney said. "They were brought there. They were unresponsive and unconscious, but it appears they are not likely to die at this time."
During their brief conversation, the suspect told detectives he detected the devil in his father. The two started to fight about that, and his father apparently hit him in the head with a cup before the suspect responded by allegedly stabbing his father with a pair of scissors.
The suspect told detectives he saw black smoke escape his fathers body. The black smoke then entered his own body, he told police.
The suspect then proceeded to poison the three remaining victims with an unknown substance. Tests are being conducted on water bottles recovered next to the bodies, as well as chemicals recovered in the apartment.
Walker he is currently in the hospital undergoing a psych evaluation, and charged against him are expected, to be determined by the district attorney.
Police say there was no prior history of domestic violence or any other calls involving emotionally disturbed people from that location.
The investigation is ongoing.
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