A treacherous murder and a movie escape: the reconstruction of the shooter’s passage through New York

The attacker arrived in New York on November 24, after ten at night, the chief of detectives of the New York police explained on Friday. Joseph Kenny. The suspect arrived in the same way he is believed to have escaped: by bus, in an trip coming from Atlanta, 1,500 kilometers south. But it is not certain that he got on the bus in Georgia’s main city. I could have done it at any of the half dozen stops along the way.

After getting off the bus at the Port Authority terminal, on 34th Street in Manhattan, he got into a taxi and headed to the New York Hilton hotel, which would be the scene of his crime a few days later. He inspected the area for half an hour and then took another taxi to the HI New York City Hostel, on 104th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, a hostel with shared rooms where he stayed.

Authorities don’t have much idea what the suspect did in the following days. Kenny only explained that the attacker checked out, signed out, on November 29 and re-registered at the same establishment on the 30th. That was the moment in which the only images of the suspect were recorded. with his face uncovered.

During the entire stay in New York that the police were able to supervise, the attacker was always covered with a mask or balaclava. On his second check-in at the hostel, the receptionist He asked him to lower his mask so he could see his face.. It may have been a demand to allow him to register, but some local media have published that the suspect flirted with the receptionist. It is something that is not confirmed, but in the captured images you can see a wide smile on the suspect.

That is the only known drop of guard so far in Thompson’s attacker. He was not seen speaking to anyone. He wore the mask at all times. Also inside the hotel, also while eating. He made sure to pay only with cash. He used a New Jersey identification card that was proven to be false.

Authorities have not provided any further information about what the suspect did as of Wednesday, December 4, the day of the murder. He left the hostel around 5:30 in the morning. The police believe that he traveled on an electric bicycle because it took him very little time to reach 54th Street, near the Hilton hotel where he would kill Thompson. It’s possible he stole that bike..

Before committing the murder, he entered a Starbucks. He bought a coffee, an energy bar and a bottle of water. From this last object, found by the police, DNA samples have been collected that could be used to discover the identity of the attacker.

Around 6:30 in the morning, a quarter of an hour before the murder, a security camera captured the suspect talking on the phone. It was a prepaid phone that the police also found later. He arrived at the Hilton, where Thompson was going to participate in an investor conference for his company, five minutes before the victim, who walked there from a nearby hotel, the Marriott.

The murderer did not exchange a word with Thompson. He approached him from behind and shot him three times in the back. It was still night, 6:44 in the morning. The gun jammed at one point.but the attacker was able to solve the problem and shoot again. He fled from there through a nearby passage. The first police officers arrived two minutes later. By then, the murderer was already back on the electric bicycle, escaping towards the nearby Central Park, very close to the crime scene. He crossed the green lung of the Big Apple from an entrance in the south to an exit in the west, at 77th Street. Along the way, it is likely that he got rid of the backpack he was carrying at the time of the murder and that was recorded by security cameras (She was found by police in a bush area on Friday night).

He biked to 86th Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. Around seven in the morning, a security camera recorded him on that same street, but without that vehicle. He got into a taxi heading north to the bus station at 187th Street and Broadway Avenue. Another camera saw him enter there at 7:30. No camera saw him leave. The terminal is at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge, which connects New York and New Jersey and is one of the major exit routes from the Big Apple. From there there are buses that leave for other states. Police believe the killer climbed onto one of them.