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Fired Construction Worker Who Killed Foreman Reportedly Talked About Killing Boss For Days
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 6, 2017
Modified Oct 6, 2017
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Jen Chung / Gothamist
By
Rebecca Fishbein
Published Oct 6, 2017
Modified Oct 6, 2017
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News outlets have identified the construction worker who murdered his former foreman at a Midtown construction site before turning the gun on himself as Samuel Perry, 44, of Far Rockaway, Queens. Perry, a carpenter, had been fired from the construction job at Waterline Square at 645 West 59th Street on Monday, and returned Thursday morning to fatally shoot foreman Christopher Sayers, 37, who had dismissed him. He then shot himself in the head in a bathroom, police said.
Perry had reportedly been hinting at his deadly plan a day or two before carrying it out.
Perry shot Sayers on the 37th floor of the high-rise development. A fellow construction worker on the site, Robert "Spider" Pagan, told reporters he saw Perry at the site on Thursday in the stairwell near the 31st floor, shortly after hearing what he thought were gunshots.
"I actually hugged him on the way down, not knowing he had done it. He was very casual. I said, 'What's going on?'" Pagan told DNAinfo. "I asked, 'Are you bringing guns to the job?' He said, 'No Spider, I'm going home.'" Then Pagan found Sayers's body. "I checked his pulse, but it didn't seem like he had one. He was face down," he said.
Neighbors say Perry had actually warned them he'd act out after getting fired from the site. "He’s been telling me. I was trying to talk him out of it. He got fired two days ago. It pushed him to his limits," next door neighbor Karinne Gale told the Post. The tabloid reported that Perry also texted his brother telling him he was going to kill his boss, and tried to get rid of his pit bull the day before the shooting. "He told me he wanted to shoot the dog and bury him in the yard. I told him don’t do that," another neighbor, Mike, told the Post.
Neighbors and police also told reporters that Perry's wife took her own life about two years prior, reportedly dousing herself in gasoline and lighting herself on fire inside their home. "He told me she did it in the middle of the night. She came into his room and was calling his name," Gale said.
Co-workers described Perry as "a bit of a hot head." Sayers, meanwhile, was praised for his leadership. "He’s a quiet guy. He comes in the morning real early, drinks his coffee, smokes his cigarette, and then he went about his business. He never gives nobody a hard time. Never," Dennis Greaves, who worked on the Waterline Square project, told the Times.
Police are still trying to determine how Perry got inside the development.
Tagged
HOMICIDE
midtown
shooting
Rebecca Fishbein
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