NEW YORK — Police investigating the brutal stabbing death of Queens mom Orsolya Gaal are focused on a man they believe she had a romantic relationship with, police sources said Tuesday.
The NYPD has stopped short of identifying the man as a suspect in the married woman’s murder because they don’t have enough evidence against him — including whether he is the person seen on video dragging Gaal’s body away from her Forest Hills home in a duffel bag, the sources said.
Police are also concerned that if they label him a person of interest, he might surrender with a lawyer and refuse to answer questions.
It wasn’t clear how Gaal, 51, met the man or how and when their relationship ended. But he has previously been in her family’s tony Tudor-style home and may have done work around the house, the sources said.
Gaal was in contact with three men on the night before her death, law enforcement sources said Tuesday.
Gaal, married with two children, went out last Friday to see a show in Manhattan near Lincoln Center, then arrived back in Queens about 11 p.m. and headed to a bar near her home, investigators have determined. Police are combing through her phone records, looking for calls and texts that might suggest she was supposed to meet someone at the watering hole.
She left the bar after about 40 minutes and arrived at her home on Juno Street by herself.
The man who killed her later entered through a backdoor and attacked her on the first floor and in the basement, stabbing and slashing her at least 50 times, mostly in the neck and upper body. She also had wounds on her hands, indicating that she put up a fight.
Her 13-year-old son was sleeping upstairs.
Doorbell video from a nearby home shows the killer about 4:30 a.m. on Saturday wheeling the duffel bag containing Gaal’s corpse away from the home en route to Metropolitan Avenue, where he dumped the bag just outside Forest Park. A dog-walker discovered the body about 8 a.m. on Saturday.
On Tuesday morning, police put up $3,500 reward posters around Gaal’s neighborhood asking the public for information on the shocking murder.
“She was a wonderful person. When I heard this, I couldn’t believe it,” teary-eyed neighbor Ina Cohen told the Daily News on Tuesday as she placed a bouquet of flowers outside Gaal’s home.
Cohen works at Church in the Gardens Nursery School, which Gaal’s two sons attended as tots.
Recalling the happy family, Cohen couldn’t fathom why Gaal had been killed.
“There’s nothing bad to say,” she said. “She always had a smile on her face. She was always proud of her children. It’s such a tragedy.”
“I just hope they find whoever did this,” she added. “Because what they did to her, horrible.”
Gaal disappeared once before, on May 29, 2020, when her husband, Howard Klein, called police at 7:21 a.m. and said she had left their home at 12:30 a.m. to go for a walk and had not returned. He managed to track her phone to Jamaica, Queens, but couldn’t reach her.
About 30 minutes after calling cops, Klein called police back saying his wife was safe.
When Gaal was killed, Klein and their 17-year-old son were away in Oregon looking at colleges.
Klein is in the business of trading lithium, a metal used to make batteries. He’s identified as the founding partner of RK Equity, which according to LinkedIn is a “New York-based boutique capital markets advisory firm.”
The younger son was questioned by police and released to the custody of an adult Saturday morning, cops said.
After the murder, Klein reported getting threatening texts from his wife’s phone and has told police he is worried for his and his family’s safety. Attempts by The News to reach Klein have been unsuccessful.
An autopsy on Monday revealed Gaal was killed by “sharp force injuries” to her neck before she was placed in the duffel bag, the city medical examiner’s office said. Sources said the medical examiner found more than 50 stab and slash wounds, with one source putting the tally at 59.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.
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