Suspect, 71, nabbed for stabbing ex, beating her with pipe, killing her friend in third attack in her NYC apartment
A 71-year-old suspect has been nabbed for stabbing his younger ex-girlfriend, beating her with his fists and a crowbar and murdering her friend — the third time he’s been accused of attacking the woman in her Brooklyn apartment in recent months, police said Monday.
Sylvester Harris was arrested Friday for showing up at his 49-year-old ex’s East Flatbush apartment on Oct. 25, stabbing her and her 60-year-old friend multiple times and beating them with the crowbar, according to cops.
The crazed attack in the apartment on Willmohr St. near E. 92nd St. left the woman seriously hurt and her friend James Quigley dead.
The deadly encounter was the third time Harris violently flew off the handle at the woman’s home.
On July 24, he punched the woman in the face and grabbed her. He was arrested and arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court, where a judge issued an order of protection that directed the man to stay away from the victim and her home, prosecutors said.
He was also ordered to take part in a problem-solving program and released without bail after he was arraigned on misdemeanor assault, menacing and harassment charges.
A week later, ignoring the order, Harris went back to the woman’s apartment and punched her in the face and beat her with a metal object — causing her serious bruising, pain and broken blood vessels in her eye, the prosecutors added. That time he was charged with felony assault, menacing with a weapon and violating an order of protection.
He was again released without bail and issued a second order of protection, but again, the piece of paper didn’t stop him from sending the woman to Brookdale University Hospital late last month and killing her friend, police said.
After the attack, the woman spoke briefly with the Daily News.
“I’m doing OK,” she said from her hospital bed, both eyes bruised black and blue. “I’m coping. Just in pain, but that’s it.”
Her caseworker Kenneth Wiggins said the attacker acted out of “jealousy.”
Quigley was a friend and neighbor of the woman for years but “not someone she’s romantically related to,” Wiggins explained. “And her former boyfriend got jealous and went into a rage.”
After the slaying, police showed up at Quigley’s stepdaughter’s home to ask about the man.
“We weren’t told anything,” said Jamie Phillips. “They said his boss reported him not coming in to work for the past few days.”
Phillips and her sister hadn’t spoken to the man since her mother died in 2021, but the sibling told The News she “wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”
“He was a nice person when he wanted to be, but when he was drinking, he started acting funny,” said Sherry Ann Phillips. “My mother loved him.”
Jamie Phillps had an order of protection against Quigley, whom the sisters have known since they were children.
“We don’t speak with him,” she said.
After a warrant was issued for Harris’ arrest last week, police picked him up in East New York. He immediately asked for a lawyer and made no statements to cops.
He is now charged with murder, attempted murder, criminal obstruction of breathing, weapon possession and criminal contempt for once again violating the order of protection, police said.
He was ordered held without bail when he was arraigned on the new charges in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Saturday.
