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Triple Murder Suspect's Last Victim Describes Attack
By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 13, 2011
Modified Feb 13, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Feb 13, 2011
Modified Feb 13, 2011
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Triple murder suspect Maksim Gelman's 28-hour rampage, during which he is accused of stabbing seven people as well as fatally striking a pedestrian with a car, ended Saturday morning after he attacked Joseph Lozito on the uptown 3 train. It seems that Gelman messed with the wrong guy: "You better hope I f---ing die, because I’m going to kill you if I don’t," Lozito shouted at Gelman after he had been apprehended by police.
Considering that Lozito is a 6-foot-2, 270-pound mixed martial arts buff, Gelman definitely picked a hard target to pin down: "I’m glad he didn’t go after a child, or after a woman, or after an elderly person, because I can defend myself," Lozito told the Post. Lozito, a father of two, recounted the incident to both the Post and News from his hospital bed at Bellevue: he was commuting from suburban Philadelphia to his box office job at Avery Fisher Hall when Gelman began wildly pounding on the motorman's door, pretending to be a cop. He then turned to Lazito and said, "You are going to die," before lunging at him with the knife. After being struck in the head, Lazito saw an opportunity to fight back: "I tried to take him down with a wrestling move called a single leg takedown, but it ended up more like a football tackle," Lozito said.
Transit cops and Officer Terrence Howell joined in, and were able to subdue Gelman. Another passenger then helped apply pressure to Lozito's wounds. "I owe him a debt of gratitude. To me, he’s the reason I’m alive," Lozito said. Another victim, who survived being stabbed in the chest when Gelman stole his Pontiac Bonneville, told the Post that it was clear to him that Gelman knew what he was doing: "He’ll probably use the insanity defense but it was premeditated. He went after three people he knew first," said Arthur DiCrescento.
Tagged
3 train
fatal stabbing
joseph lozito
knife
maksim gelman
murder
subway
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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