Police were seeking a 23-year-old man suspected of stabbing his stepfather to death earlier this morning, but now the hunt for Maksim Gelman is more urgent after he allegedly fatally stabbed his girlfriend and her mother this afternoon. Gelman also apparently stabbed a man before stealing his car and then, while driving, struck a pedestrian.
Police say that Gelman and his stepfather Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 54, had an argument in the East 27th Street Sheepshead Bay apartment where they lived with Gelman's mother around 5 a.m. when Gelman stabbed Kuznetsov. Gelman fled in a Lexus. The Daily News reports, "Hours later, the raging Gelman slashed his girlfriend and her mother to death inside an apartment just blocks away. When cops arrived at the E. 24th St. home about 4:30 p.m., the two women were dead, police said. Moments after killing the women, Gelman attacked a passing motorist - stabbing the innocent 42-year-old before stealing his Pontiac Bonneville, cops said."
At Avenue R and Ocean Avenue, Gelman hit an 80-year-old man, who is in the hospital in grave condition. A super at Gelman's building told the Post that the suspect and his stepfather were not on good terms: "One time I asked him, 'What's your father's name,' and he replied, 'a--hole.' I never thought that I'd see this, him stabbing him to death. I could see them maybe getting into a fistfight."
