Photo Courtesy of Google
The three victims were discovered in this Springfield Gardens home.
By Forum Staff
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced on Monday the indictment of Jabari Burrell, 22, for the stabbing deaths of his grandmother and two other relatives in their Springfield Gardens home last month.
Burrell, a Brooklyn resident, was arraigned on an eight-count indictment charging him with three counts of murder in the first and second degree, grand larceny in the fourth degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree.
Photo Courtesy of DA Katz
DA Katz called the attack “a heartbreaking tragedy.”
According to the indictment, on Thursday, Nov. 17, Burrell visited the residence of his grandmother and two aunts near the intersection of 182nd Street and 146th Drive in Springfield Gardens. On Nov. 18, at approximately 9 a.m., a relative and a health aide entered the residence and discovered Latoya Gordon, 47, lying dead on the floor of a bedroom with multiple stab wounds to her body. In another bedroom, 25-year-old Patrice Johnson was discovered lying dead in her medical bed, with 65-year-old Hyacinth Brown-Johnson lying dead nearby on the floor, both of whom were also stabbed multiple times. After the brutal attacks on his aunts and grandmother, Burrell allegedly fled the scene in his grandmother’s minivan.
Investigators later recovered blood-stained knives from the bathroom, the kitchen sink and from a kitchen drawer. Knives were additionally discovered in Gordon’s bedroom and the living room.
At approximately 2 p.m. on Nov. 19, Virginia State Police arrested Burrell in Ms. Johnson’s van on the side of Interstate 95 in Prince George County, Virginia.
“This is a heartbreaking tragedy,” Katz said. “The defendant is alleged to have turned on three family members who had opened their home to him, his grandmother and two aunts, one of whom was disabled by cerebral palsy. They were defenseless against his brutal rage. He fled but was extradited and will now face justice.”
If convicted, Burrell faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
