A 35-year-old woman was stabbed to death inside her Manhattan apartment on Sunday by a homeless man who had allegedly followed her home, police said.
Christina Yuna Lee had returned home to her apartment in Chinatown when a man followed her from the street into her building. Surveillance video footage obtained by The New York Post shows the man, identified by police as Assamad Nash, 25, catching the door behind Lee and trailing her inside of the building shortly before 4.30am.
Moments later a neighbor across the hall from Lee called the police after hearing her screams during the heinous stabbing. When police had arrived the door to Lee’s apartment was locked, and Nash had barricaded himself inside.
When Emergency Service Unit officials broke down the door to the apartment they found Lee dead in her bathtub, and her killer hiding under a bed.
The landlord of the building, Brian Chin, told outlets how the man ‘mercilessly stalked’ Lee up six flights of stairs before slipping into her apartment.
‘We’ve got cameras on every floor and in the front here,’ he said. ‘She got out of a cab right here and he followed her. He grabbed the front door just before it closed. He followed her all the way up, hanging back, staying one floor behind her all the way up to the sixth floor.’
Nash allegedly tried to flee the apartment through the fire escape before barricading himself inside, prompting officials to break down the door. He was arrested inside the apartment and taken to Bellevue Hospital to treat cuts and lacerations. He has since been released and facing murder and burglary charges.
Court records show Nash has a history of misdemeanor arrests, including an incident in September where he allegedly punched a man in the face at a subway station not far from the apartment where the killing took place.
While police are still investigating whether the slaying was a hate crime, attacks against Asian Americans have been on the rise, especially in New York City, where last month, a 40-year-old Asian American woman was shoved to her death while waiting for the subway in Times Square.
Lee previously lived in New Jersey and was a Rutgers University graduate who worked as a senior creative producer at Splice, an online platform for digital music. She had also worked on photo and video campaigns for various brands, including Marriott International and Equinox, according to her website.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams spoke out against the fatal attack on Sunday, saying in a statement: ‘I and New Yorkers across the city mourn for the innocent woman murdered in her home last night in Chinatown, and stand with our Asian brothers and sisters today.
‘While the suspect who committed this heinous act is now in custody, the conditions that created him remain,’ Adams said. ‘The mission of this administration is clear: We won’t let this violence go unchecked.’
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