NEW YORK — A homeless suspect accused of following a woman into her Manhattan building then stabbing her to death inside her apartment was charged Monday with murder, police said.
It’s still not clear why Assamad Nash allegedly killed 35-year-old Christina Yuna Lee, but police sources said detectives do not believe she was targeted because she was Asian.
The victim, despite fighting back against Nash, 25, was killed early Sunday. Her cries for help prompted frantic 911 calls from neighbors about an attack unfolding her apartment on the Lower East Side.
When police got there the blood-soaked suspect tried to get away via a fire escape, then retreated back into the apartment, where he barricaded himself until police broke down the door and arrested him.
Sources said the suspect had cuts on his upper body, although it was not yet clear if he stabbed himself or if Lee stabbed him during their life-and-death struggle. The victim was killed with a knife from her own kitchen, the sources said.
Nash is charged with burglary in addition to murder.
Mayor Eric Adams, in Albany to meet with state legislators, touched briefly on the Chinatown attack, vaguely referencing “loopholes” that he believes are to blame for the city’s recent crime spike.
“My heart goes out to the family,” Adams told reporters. “This is a devastating crime that took place, and we need to make sure that we close the loopholes that allow dangerous people to be on the streets, so we use this term to identify everything that’s wrong with the criminal justice system.”
Sources said Nash has a New Jersey record, including for robbery and burglary, going back at least 10 years.
He has eight prior arrests in New York City, mostly for low-level subway offenses.
Outraged residents and community leaders gathered outside Lee’s apartment building, where the unsuspecting victim was followed and stalked before her death. There, the crowd chanted, “Enough is enough,” a cry of frustration over the the violence that has gripped the city, from street corners to subway platforms.
Though cops did not charge Nash with a hate crime, some residents and community leaders said it should not be ruled out as a motive.
“I am outraged at a city with a mental health system which is broken again and again and again,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine. “We are seeing violence directed at the Asian American community disproportionally, undeniably driven by bigotry, by xenophobia, by racism.”
“If this guy has been in the system that many times, then someone should be checking him because they had to know that the man had a mental illness,” said Kathryn Freed, 75, a former state Supreme Court justice, who served on the city council and lives blocks from where Lee was killed.
“We’re using the criminal justice system to deal with mental health — it’s our fallback, our default position. So many people who are in jail now should not be in jail. They should be in a mental institution that can deal with their problems. It’s not helping them, leaving them on the street or leaving them to deal with problems that they can’t deal with, that they’re not capable of dealing with, and at the same time it’s putting society at risk.”
“Just last month we mourned the death of Michelle Go and Yao Pan Ma.” said Jacky Wong, 45, a member of the Concerned Citizens of East Broadway. “Today we gather here to remember Christina Yuna Lee. The list is getting longer and longer. We can’t see an end. Christina Yuna Lee is 35 years old and she’s a Korean American."
Lee was remembered by her friends and co-workers for her kindness and creativity. Splice, an online digital platform where she worked as a creative producer, called her a “beautiful friend and colleague.”
“Over the weekend our beloved Christina Lee was senselessly murdered in her home,” a company representative said in a social media post. “Our hearts are broken. Always dedicated to making beautiful and inclusive artwork , Christina is irreplaceable. As we start to process this tragedy, we ask that you remember Christina Lee as the magical person she was, always filled with joy. We wish peace upon her family in their grief.”
Lee’s marketing work included designs and videos for retail, fashion, fitness, media, art and music. She studied at Rutgers University in New Jersey, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in art history.
Lee had also worked at Eli Klein Gallery, where she helped move the operation from Soho to Chelsea.
“She was an extraordinarily kind soul,” owner Eli Klein said. “All of my artists, the curators, everyone uniformly universally loved Christina.”
Anger over Lee’s grisly murder quickly focused on bail reform. Though much of the venom was aimed at Manhattan’s new district attorney, Alvin Bragg and his perceived soft-on-crime approach, many of the offenses for which Nash had been arrested occurred when Cyrus Vance was Manhattan’s DA.
Authorities said Nash also had 18 prior arrests in New Jersey, none of which involved a gun. Those offenses included arrests for burglary, car jacking, criminal mischief and robbery.
Nash was also charged in a Lower East Side assault of David Elliot, 62, in September. Elliot said Nash punched him in the face, an attack that left him needing four stitches on his left forehead.
“That son of a b----,” Elliot told the Daily News Monday, describing his reaction to learning his attacker is now charged in the grisly murder. “I was kind of shocked. I didn’t think he was that much out there.”
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