New Evidence Revealed In Brooklyn Jogger Murder Case

BROOKLYN, NY— A Brooklyn grand jury agreed to indict Sayed Mohassib, 27, on second degree murder charges for killing Katie Suarez while she jogged along the Shore Parkway Greenway in Brooklyn on Oct. 30.

Mohassib denied killing Suarez, a 28-year-old woman who was found bleeding and unconscious along a running path near her job at TD Bank's branch inside Caesar's Bay Shopping Center.

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After he was arrested and charged on Saturday, he told investigators he sat on a bench near the bike path and became covered in blood, according to the criminal complaint.

Surveillance footage shows Mohassib running away from the scene of the stabbing, entering his apartment building and then walking out about 15 minutes later to throw items in the garbage, the complaint read.

He later told police that he got rid of his clothing and the knife, and in doing so, tracked blood onto the wall of his apartment.

"Katie Suarez was a young woman with her whole life ahead of her, brutally taken from her loved ones in a senseless act of violence," District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.

Mohassib worked as a paraprofessional with the Department of Education, and served briefly as an NYPD officer and in the U.S. Marine Corps. His employment with both agencies were not extended due to psychiatric issues.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said he had directed the city Department of Education to conduct a thorough investigation into the hiring process.

He said Mohassib had been terminated, and that the City was reviewing its background check process, including how they intersect with other city agencies.

Suarez left her job at the waterfront retail complex around 6:30 p.m., met her mother to change into running clothes before heading west along the waterfront path.

Around 8 p.m., her father called to ask where she was.

He was near the bank, and Suarez told him she was about a half-mile away — a distance she could cover in roughly five minutes, according to the report.

Her father called again. When she did not answer, he went to the waterfront to look for her and found her with two stab wounds to her neck.

Emergency responders took Suarez to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where doctors treated her in critical condition, according to police.

Before the indictment on Tuesday, state Sen. Andrew Gounardes and other officials renewed calls for improved lighting across Southern Brooklyn, citing a backlog of 137 inoperative streetlight locations in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights.

"The average turnaround time for routine repairs has increased from approximately 10 days to several weeks," the official wrote in a letter to NYC Department of Transportation Commissioner Mike Flynn, adding that some complex repairs have left lights out for nearly a year.

Prior to Mohassib's arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny told reporters that Suarez's killing was believed to be a random attack.

Mohassib was ordered held without bail following his arraignment on the criminal complaint. He is expected to be arraigned on the indictment in the coming days, though a hearing date has not yet been set.