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Photos of D Train Murder Depict Bloody Panic
By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 27, 2009
Modified Nov 28, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Nov 27, 2009
Modified Nov 28, 2009
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Graphic photos have surfaced from the recent murder on the D train. Photography student Paola Nuñez Solorio was on her way home with fellow students when Gerardo Sanchez allegedly stabbed Dwight Johnson because he wouldn't move his bag from an unoccupied seat to make room on the half-empty train. The two men did not know each other. Solorio took 120 photos during the murder, and today the Times has published four of them online. The images are very disturbing, as is Solorio's first-hand account of the murder:
Everyone started running toward us. We thought there was a fight. Then we saw this guy with blood coming out of his mouth, and the killer right behind him, putting this thing away. I didn’t know what it was. We didn’t know what to do. We were stuck with the killer. We didn’t know what to do. A guy standing with us said, "Don’t move."
After one rider pulled the emergency brake, stranding the train between Rockefeller Center and 7th Avenue, Johnson collapsed. Several minutes passed before the train pulled into the station, and when it finally did, the doors remained closed, despite the presence of two police officers on the platform. Solorio's friend tells the Times, "People were looking at us like we were in the zoo." Sanchez, meanwhile, was trying to blend in with the other passengers. "The killer tried to be a part of us," says the friend. She remembers hearing him say, "I didn’t do anything."
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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