Jun 18, 2009 7:11 pm US/Eastern
Police Search For Motive In Queens Murder Mystery
Man, Believed To Be In His 30s, Found Stabbed Repeatedly In His Forest Hills Apartment
Reporting
Jay Dow
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
Police in Forest Hills, Queens are trying to unravel a murder mystery after a well-liked man was stabbed to death in his apartment.
Now, police are reportedly looking into whether the victim met his killer online.
"I remember him – very, very nice guy," neighbor Nancy Ocampo says. "I feel sorry for him."
Neighbors have nothing but nice things to say about 38-year-old Michael Pecora, found stabbed to death Wednesday night inside his sixth floor apartment.
"I feel sick, I feel sick because he was such a nice young fellow," neighbor Adela Saporta said.
Police say worried coworkers went to the building on 65th Avenue to check up on Pecora. They found the building's super, who climbed onto the victim's fire escape and discovered a grisly scene.
"He said, 'oh, I see a lot of blood. I'm not going in there,'" building handyman Joseph Piecyzkowski says. "And he borrowed my phone and called the cops."
Pecora's family had been trying to reach the victim on his cell phone, and alerted police when another voice answered the call.
"A cab driver answered the cell phone, stating that he picked up a fare in Queens and dropped him off in the Bronx, and the individual had no money but paid him with a watch and a cell phone," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly says.
Piecyzkowski expressed concern over the number of men he saw enter the victim's apartment over the last few months.
"Two years ago, he had one guy – nice, quiet. But the last year, a couple of times, he brought different guys," he said. "And I talked to the super, and he said soon there'd be something happening."
Pecroa's laptop computer was reportedly missing, and the cab driver told investigators that he recalled the suspicious passenger carrying something that resembled a computer, perhaps in an attempt to cover his tracks.
Despite the blood-ridden scene inside the apartment, investigators say there are no signs of forced entry. Investigators also searched for possible clues on the building's fire escapes, but so far the motive for the killing remains unclear.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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