Man, 25, charged with murder after fatal stabbing on New York subway J train

Jyrell Thomas, 25, faces murder charges after fatally stabbing a fellow passenger on a Queens J train. It is the sixth subway homicide in New York this year.

Sixth subway homicide of the year after Queens J train attack

Jyrell Thomas, 25, has been charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon following the fatal stabbing of a fellow passenger on a J train in Queens, New York, abc7chicago.com reports.

The victim, Mesias Lojano, 59, was attacked just after 4 p.m. on Wednesday. According to police, Thomas had been pacing the train car and appeared agitated before approaching Lojano with a kitchen knife. Lojano attempted to move away before Thomas struck him.

Thomas was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation on Thursday morning. Police described him as emotionally disturbed before he was formally arrested on the murder and weapons charges.

The violence moved from the train car onto a J train platform, where bystanders pursued Thomas. Witness Bismarck Villareyna recorded video of the attack on his phone.

"I heard, 'oh somebody is being attacked, somebody being attacked.' So I pulled out my phone, started walking, as you see in the video," Villareyna said.

Villareyna said he considered physically intervening but held back out of concern for his own safety. "I wanted to kick him, but I say, you know, if I kick him and I miss or he stabbed me then. So I was getting my position. I tried to record to get, you know, evidence."

He continued to follow Thomas after the attack and directed responding officers to his location. Thomas had climbed onto a rooftop, where officers had to lift and carry him away.

"He sat down and he was saying, 'oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it,'" Villareyna recounted.

Thomas has one prior arrest, from a robbery last month in which he stole $23 worth of merchandise from a Bronx Target store. He was charged at the time with petit larceny, obstruction of governmental administration, and criminal possession of stolen property.

The killing is the sixth homicide recorded in the New York subway system so far this year. There were four murders across the entire system last year, and ten in 2024. Assaults on the subway are also up 7% year-on-year, with 441 incidents recorded compared to 410 at the same point last year.

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)