NEW YORK — It was a crime of passion, two years in the making, against a scandalous backdrop of illicit sex and deceit: A Queens mom and the local handyman were on-and-off lovers until their final, fatal meeting in the basement of her Tudor-style home.
For Orsolya Gaal, 51, there was no inkling of the horrors ahead when she headed into Manhattan for a Lincoln Center show with friends on Good Friday. A neighbor had earlier spotted the hockey mom, whose husband was out of town, frolicking behind her Forest Hills home with the family dog on a sunny spring afternoon.
Gaal later left the younger of their two sons inside their house on Juno Street and boarded a train for her night out, excited about seeing one of her favorite composers perform. The Hungarian immigrant traveled home the same way, arriving around 11:20 p.m. and stopping at the Forest Hills Station House gastropub for a nightcap — her favorite, a Moscow mule.
