Sykes had been sought since Wednesday when he allegedly stabbed to death Rebecca Cutler, 26, and two of her children, 1-year-old Ziana Cutler and 4-month-old Maiyah Sykes, in a room they were staying at in the Ramada Hotel in the Willowbrook section of Staten Island. Police said there was no history of domestic violence between the two, but a report had been filed a day before the stabbing after he was accused of stealing Cutler’s phone, claiming she was contacting another man. He was found Saturday afternoon in Queens by a fugitive task force and was being questioned. Sykes was the father of Maiyah. Sykes was in police custody Saturday night and couldn’t be reached for comment.
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As of Wednesday, some 41 hotels housed more than 2,500 homeless people, including more than 600 children, de Blasio said. He was arrested on three counts of murder, attempted murder and robbery charges.
Although nobody seemed to hear or see anything, a video from the hotel showed Sykes waiting outside Rebecca’s room for almost an hour on the day of the triple murder.
“He looked like he was doing something wrong”, said store employee Sammy Abdul said, explaining that when Sykes used Cutler’s EBT card to pay for his purchases “his hands were shaking, he was looking to his back like who’s outside”.
Miracle is on the mend, said one of Cutler’s relatives. Enlarge Sykes stabbed Rebecca Cutler (r.) 47 times, sources said, and the three children were all stabbed multiple times before being discovered by a housekeeper at the hotel.
Sykes was seen with Cutler and his family before the stabbings, going to breakfast with them and buying soda and Pop Tarts, investigators said. “They’re taking it hard, really hard”, her uncle, James Mathis, told WABC-TV.
Authorities say that he called his mother after the attack, confessed to the crime and talked about committing suicide.
Mayor de Blasio told city officials in 2014 to start using hotels instead of opening more shelters to accommodate the city’s homeless to avoid notifying communities when new shelters would be built.
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The New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance cited the stabbing in ordering the city to shut the Ramada Inn as a homeless shelter, relocate the residents and beef up security at the other centers around the city.
