Evelyn Cruz is being charged with murder, but it wasn't the first time she had been violent toward her neighbors, according to reports.
A incident between neighbors turned deadly over the weekend when one woman stabbed another in a beachfront New York apartment, People reported.
Jessica Britt, 33, was days away from getting married when she was allegedly stabbed by her neighbor, 48-year-old Evelyn Cruz, who was reportedly known by her neighbors as “monster,” the New York Daily News reported.
Police responded to a residence in Far Rockaway on Saturday before midnight and found Britt with stab wounds to the chest. She was transported to the hospital where she died, according to reports. Cruz is being charged with murder and possession of a weapon.
This wasn’t Cruz’s first run-in with authorities as she had been reported to police before by her neighbors for other violence incidents, including when she allegedly threatened to cut a neighbor with a razor blade in 2019, police told People. Six months after that incident, she was charged with assault for allegedly slashing the neck of another neighbor, authorities said.
Cruz attacked Britt in the lobby as Britt’s fiancé watched in horror, according to police. It was what was the end of a 2-year conflict the couple had with Cruz, according to her fiancé.
"I'm still waiting for her to walk in the door," Blue said. "[Cruz] deserves to rot in jail. The whole time I've been living in this building, everybody called her 'Monster.'"
Another neighbor, Philip Thomas, 47, told the Daily News there had been multiple complaints about Cruz to the management of the Sand Castle apartment complex.
Thomas said that Cruz had hit his apartment door with a baseball bat, among other alleged incidents.
"This is an ongoing issue that should have been handled a long, long, long time ago," Thomas told the Daily News. "I've told them that no one's going to do something until someone is killed."
