Mount Eden resident Jeffrey Jimenez Cruz was arguing with an unidentified adversary on Grinnell Place near Truxton St. in Hunts Point when his rival stabbed him in the chest around 2:55 a.m. on Nov. 24, cops said.

Medics rushed the victim to Lincoln Hospital in stable condition, but he lapsed into a coma and died on Dec. 13 — his birthday, the victim’s aunt said.

“He was in the hospital for 20 days,” said Luz Mendez, 45. “He never regained consciousness. He was trying to defend somebody when he was stabbed. He died on his 24th birthday.”

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner determined he died as a result of the stab wound he sustained, ruling his death a homicide.

Investigators told Jimenez Cruz’s family that the victim died while standing up for another person, his uncle said.

“Everybody who knew him, loved him,” said Alberto Castillo, 39. “He was stabbed defending someone else in a fight.”

Jimenez Cruz worked security for Target but recently passed the NYPD’s entrance exam and was preparing to enter the Police Academy after graduating from community college.

“He was about to graduate from Bronx Community College and join the Police Department,” Castillo said. “They had already accepted him. He passed the test. He was about to go to the academy.

“We are destroyed.”

Cops were called to NYCHA’s Mitchel Houses on E. 138th St. near Alexander Ave. in Mott Haven at about 9:30 a.m. where they found a wounded Caleb Rijos.

The teen had been stabbed twice in the chest, police said.

EMS rushed the teen to Lincoln Hospital, but he could not be saved.

No arrests have been made.

The teen’s devastated father told the Daily News his family was still trying to piece together the events that led to his son’s senseless murder.

“He was a wonderful boy. He was caring and loving. It’s hard right now,” said Jacob Rijos, 52.

“We’re discussing the next steps. The police are still doing their investigation. We don’t really know what happened.”

Surveillance footage viewed by the Daily News shows the teen sprinting north on Lincoln Ave. past a Gasolina station before darting east along E. 138th St., his attacker hot on his heels.

A worker at the Gasolina station who is a friend of the victim’s family told The News that Caleb called his father moments after the stabbing.

“He called his father saying, ‘Dad I can’t breathe,'” said the friend, who asked that his name be withheld. “He was running and the other guy got him.”

The family friend spoke highly of the victim, saying the teen didn’t deserve to die in the streets.

“It’s crazy. It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “He was a good kid. He always dressed nice. He wasn’t a street kid.”

Vidya “Joanne” Dookran-Franco, 51, was on the sidewalk near Lefferts Blvd. and 115 Ave. in South Ozone Park when a yellow cab mounted the curb and pinned her to a fence about 3:10 a.m. Dec. 28, cops said.

“Words can’t describe this monumental woman who was my wife,” Giovanni Franco told the Daily News as he prepared for his wife’s Saturday funeral. “Joanne was a voice for people who didn’t know what questions to ask regarding their needs.”

Police determined the cab’s 23-year-old driver was heading east on 115th Ave. when he struck a 2017 Honda Accord. The impact sent the taxi, a 2024 RAV4, careening onto the sidewalk where it slammed into Dookran-Franco and two men.

Dookran-Franco had just picked up takeout for her family and was heading back to her car escorted by two restaurant workers when she was struck, according to the news website QNS.

Medics rushed Dookran-Franco to Jamaica Hospital but she could not be saved. The other injured pedestrians, ages 49 and 44, suffered minor injuries.

The drivers of both cars remained at the scene and were uninjured. There were no arrests.

Dookran-Franco worked as a counselor for Middle School 8 in South Jamaica and formerly served on the boards of both the Richmond Hill Block Association and the One Stop Richmond Hill Community Center before moving to Merrick, L.I.

Joan Bachert, program director at RIBA, recalled once seeing Dookran-Franco’s two daughters playing with their mom at the block association’s annual Santa Day program, one of numerous community events the victim helped organize through the civic group.

“Anything that we did, [Joanne] helped out with,” said Bachert. “I loved her girls. They’re awesome, such sweet kids.”

Dookran-Franco was best known for her work in education, according to State Sen. Leroy Comrie, who said she became heavily involved in efforts to replace former MS 8 Principal John Murphy after he reprimanded a teacher’s aide in a tongue lashing so severe that she fell ill and called paramedics.

“She was very involved in helping to rally and work with the faculty and students to protest the principal being at the school,” said Comrie.

Murphy, who was accused of harassing several teachers during his reign, resigned in 2009 after protests Franco helped organize.

“We worked together to help them express their desire and their aggravation to DOE and they were able to convince the department to change principals,” Comrie said.

Comrie remembers Dookran-Franco as a woman who found joy in helping others.

“She was always upbeat, bright, engaging. She was a fun person,” the state legislator said. “She was a pleasant advocate. She was someone that you wanted to talk with. She was someone that if you gave her something, an assignment or a volunteer role she embraced it and made sure to always excel at it.”

The victim’s husband said his wife took delight in small acts of kindness and recalled her bringing refreshments to day laborers outside Home Depot and packing lunches for Queens cops.

“[Joanne showed] support for the NYPD by bringing sealed sandwiches and water to them to let the officers know there were still people who backed the blue,” said the victim’s husband.

Dookran-Franco was known to travel throughout Queens to show her face at the NYPD’s various annual National Night Out Against Crime events, the chairwoman of Community Board 9 told the Daily News.

“She came out to a lot of events,” said Sherry Algredo. “She was out there for years. Everybody knew her. When someone you have known for so many years dies in this way it’s going to affect a lot of people. I’m having a terrible time.”

A native Trinidadian, the victim and her husband met as students at John Jay College.

“She was my wife of 25 years and a wonderful spouse and mother,” said the victim’s husband. “I miss her so much.”

A celebration of life will be held for Dookran-Franco at Fairfield Pavilion in South Richmond Hill at 6 p.m. Saturday.

Jennira Roundtree, 43, was knifed in the heart and lungs during the melee outside the West Brighton Houses on Henderson Ave. near Broadway at about 7:35 p.m. Tuesday, cops said. She was also slashed in the stomach with an umbrella during the wild melee.

“The mother went outside in defense of her daughter,” a police source told the Daily News. “One person approached and stabbed her.”

A neighbor heard a group of girls picking a fight with Roundtree’s daughter and believes Roundtree died defending her.

Before Roundtree apparently intervened, friends of her daughter ran into the building to summon her older sister for help, according to neighbors.

“Some girls come in to fight with the little girl, and some friends, they go upstairs, and then the sister was coming,” said the 30-year-old neighbor. “I don’t know where her mom came from. Maybe she was outside [already].”

Scaffolding obscured the neighbor’s vision, but she said that she could hear everything.

“A friend of the [victim’s 12-year-old daughter] runs away to the building, to like let [the victim’s older daughter] know about her sister. The sister comes, and she starts fighting with the girls,” said the neighbor.

“When I see the sister fighting I said, ‘Let me go downstairs’ because I know those kids. There were a lot of people fighting.”

By the time she got downstairs Roundtree was on the ground.

“The police took her,” she said. “When they carried her, I saw she had a lot of blood. I heard her say, ‘I can’t breathe!’ That’s the only thing she said.”

“I think it’s around over here,” she said of the victim’s visible wound, pointing to an area under her chest.

Medics rushed Roundtree to Richmond University Medical Center, but she could not be saved.

The knife used to kill her was recovered at the scene, police said. Cops said the victim also was slashed with an umbrella.

There were no immediate arrests.

The victim’s mother, Jenna Roundtree, said she and her grandchildren were distraught.

“She was my eldest daughter,” she said. “Just pray for the family.”

A cousin of the victim expressed more outrage.

“Why stab her mom??” the relative posted on Facebook. “She was only trying to get her child out the pack and in the house. She wasn’t trying to cause none of y’all any harm. l pray every last one of y’all fry in prison bc this is capital murder, bringing the knife to a young teen fight then stabbing her mom in the chest multiple times was just pure overkill and premeditated.”

The cousin praised the victim for defending her daughter.

“I know she took these wounds to save her baby’s life,” the cousin wrote. “I’m so heartbroken. This hit hard. She did exactly what any and every parent was suppose to do, and that was to get between her child and anything causing harm to her child so she could get the child to safety. You will always be remembered for your bravery.”

Cops said Roundtree had seven prior arrests and 10 domestic incident reports. It wasn’t clear if she was a victim or perpetrator in the domestic incident reports, which often involve fights or other disturbances.

“This is not the time to speak right now,” a distraught woman who answered the door at Roundtree’s apartment told the Daily News. “She was a great mother … and she lost her life.”

Neighbors said Roundtree was the mother of two older boys in addition to the two daughters and worked security.

“I saw her earlier yesterday,” the neighbor said Wednesday. “She was in the front of the building with the little one, around like 4:25 p.m. I can’t sleep. I can’t believe this happened.”

Judy Rodriguez’s body was found Aug. 25, 1991, bound at the ankles under a large wooden board in a grassy area off two Queens parkways. Investigators quickly solved the mystery of who killed her but couldn’t answer the key question: Who was she?

And so she was buried on Hart Island in the Bronx, the city’s public cemetery where unclaimed bodies, including the unidentified and the indigent, are laid to rest in mass graves.

Now that genealogical DNA testing has finally put a name to her remains, Rodriguez’s family is hoping to hold a funeral and bury her next to her parents — but that sad final reunion will take time.

“It’s heartwarming to know that we have her back and that somebody paid a price,” Anna Salvadore, Rodriguez’s sister, told the Daily News.

The prospect of locating a Jane Doe buried more than three decades ago on the notorious island is daunting.

Bodies on Hart Island, which is only accessible by ferry from City Island and has served as the city’s public cemetery since 1869, are typically buried in trenches, with caskets stacked atop one another. A granite memorial or, more recently, a pole, is planted in the center of each trench and an online database shows which lot on the island individual bodies are buried in.

“It’s kind of a touchy situation because she’s been there for 33 years. Initially they told our funeral director that it couldn’t be done,” Salvadore said. “It’s a process but it probably won’t be until February or March that we will actually be able to do that.”

The city keeps comprehensive records dating back to the 1970s of who’s buried where on the sprawling cemetery island and exhumation takes two or three weeks, once a request is finalized. Harsh weather or frozen ground can delay the process, according to officials from the city Human Resources Administration. Last year, 88 sets of remains were exhumed.

Because bodies on Hart Island are buried in simple wood caskets without concrete outer containers to repel water it’s possible that little remains of Rodriguez’s body, which was already badly decomposed when it was discovered.

“The medical examiner, she put it this way, that she was confident that they would be able to recover a portion of the remains,” said Thomas DeMarco, funeral director at M. David Demarco Funeral Home in Monroe, N.J. “I would think there’d be at least bones left.”

Rodriguez was 30 when she disappeared. The last time her family saw her was at a party for Rodriguez’s baby daughter celebrating her first birthday in January 1991.

“My mom tried reporting [Rodriguez] missing and because of her drug issues that (Rodriguez) had an arrest warrant, they didn’t put out a police report on her,” Salvadore said.

Unbeknownst to her family, police found Rodriguez’s body eight months after the party in a grassy area at the intersection of the Cross Island and Southern State parkways in southeast Queens.

Her ankles were bound by a cord and a heavy wooden board was laid over her corpse when it was discovered on Aug. 25, 1991, according to the Queens DA’s office.

Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition and investigators believe she was killed six weeks prior to the discovery, placing her murder in early to mid-July, Salvadore said. Unable to identify Rodriguez’s body, police labeled her a Jane Doe.

Still, police managed to find her killers within weeks.

Officials in Queens DA Melinda Katz’s office laid out the details last week of what happened: Rodriguez was approached by four men, who drove her to the intersection. During the drive, two of the men tied her up.

I’s not clear how — or even if — Rodriguez knew the men before the deadly encounter. Investigators believed her history with drugs may have played into their meeting, a law enforcement source said.

“I don’t even know who these guys are that did this,” said Salvadore. “They weren’t friends [with her].”

Once they arrived at the intersection where she was dumped, the men pushed her out of the car and one of them bashed her in the head with a large metal flashlight, killing her, prosecutors said.

They drove away but came back two weeks later and covered up her body with a large wooden board to further conceal it.

Salvadore told The News one of the suspects was arrested after he was overheard discussing the killing at a Carvel ice cream shop.

Though court documents don’t specify which of the men delivered the fatal blow, only one of them pleaded guilty to manslaughter — Robert Miller, who was 20 at the time of the killing. He pleaded guilty in September 1992, was sentenced to up to 25 years behind bars and was released to parole in 2009. He finished his parole in 2016.

Domingo Rodriguez, who was 18 at the time of the killing and isn’t related to the victim, and Glenn Block, who was 19, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment in October 1992, getting sentences of two-to-seven years behind bars.

A fourth man, Eric Nagy, who was 20, got the lightest sentence of the group, a maximum of four-and-a-half years, after pleading guilty to hindering prosecution.

All this played out as Rodriguez’s family desperately tried to find her while they cared for her three children.

Judy’s mother distributed hundreds of handwritten fliers featuring Polaroid pictures of her missing daughter. The victim’s son, a then 14-year-old Jamal Thomas, obsessively roamed the five boroughs, at first by subway and later by car, hoping to spot his mother.

“Even years later he would ride the subway from one end to the other looking for her,” Salvadore said. “When he got his driver’s license he would drive around different neighborhoods looking.”

Salvadore meanwhile turned to her friends in law enforcement, and later social media, to seek clues to her sister’s whereabouts.

“We were looking for years. It was something that was always there,” she said. “It was something my mom always agonized over.”

Her family’s imaginations ran wild with theories, wondering if she might be living a second life with another family or had been abducted into a life of sexual slavery, or even fallen prey to the Gilgo Beach serial killer.

“Over the years you hear stories. The killer at the beach in Long Island and the bodies found, the bones … I always wondered if she was part of that,” Salvadore said. “So many thoughts went through our heads. We just never knew what happened to her.”

But NYPD detectives made the crucial decision to keep a biological sample of her remains for possible future testing as technology advanced. And in November 2023, the Queens DA’s office reached out to DNA Labs International, a private forensic lab in Florida that used advanced DNA testing to put together a comprehensive genealogical profile completed last April.

An NYPD genealogist reached out to Salvadore in June after her daughter registered her DNA with 23andMe and told her that her family might be linked to an unidentified body. The victim’s youngest daughter, Stephanie Rodriguez, who hadn’t seen her mother since turning 1, submitted her own DNA for testing. On Nov. 1 the test results came back positive as a match for Judy.

Sadly, Judy’s mother never learned of these developments. She died 11 years to the day before her daughter was officially identified.

“Three decades ago, four men were convicted for a gruesome killing of an unidentified woman. Though justice was served, the family went 33 long years without any answers about their loved one,” Katz said in a statement last week. “Thanks to our partners at the NYPD and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, we have now provided those crucial details, which I hope brings a measure of solace.”

Salvadore said she hopes anyone searching for a missing relative will see her family’s story and submit their own DNA for testing.

“It’s incredible and I think that’s the most important thing I’m trying to get out to people,” she said.  “If they have someone missing, go out and get DNA tests.”

She has been flooded with bittersweet relief since learning her sister’s fate and learning her killers faced justice.

“Although it wasn’t a long prison sentence for committing a murder, four people did pay a price,” she said. “You have a Jane Doe and they took the time to convict people of her murder. I find that incredible.”

A 911 call about an assault led police to find the two teens suffering from gunshot wounds on Macombs Road near Cromwell Ave. in Highbridge around 5:48 p.m.

At least six rounds were fired, witnesses told the Daily News. Police on Saturday were trying to determine if the shooting was gang related, sources said.

“We were working inside. [Then we heard] ‘Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!’” a worker at a Flat Fix shop across the street from the shooting told The News on Saturday. “I heard maybe five or six shots.”

Medics rushed 17-year-old Andrew Mora to St. Barnabas Hospital with a gunshot wound to the left side of his chest. He died at the hospital a short time later.

The other victim, also 17, was shot in his right abdomen and also taken to St. Barnabas. He’s expected to survive.

Police found a firearm on the surviving teen, who’s expected to be charged with weapons possession once he’s fully recovered, a police source with knowledge of the case said.

A witness who lives on the block saw the two youths splayed out on the ground after they were shot.

“There were two guys shooting at people down the block and they ran west,” the man said. “One of the kids was lying in the street by the black car. They picked him up and put him on the stretcher. The other kid was lying on the sidewalk across the street. He was dead.”

Mora lived in Inwood, Manhattan, about 3 miles from where he was fatally shot, police said.

Maria Estevez, 58, usually goes to a food truck on Macombs Road and W. 172nd St. to grab dinner. On Friday night, she said she got a bad feeling and decided to skip the food truck and go to a nearby deli.

The last-second decision may have saved her life, she believes.

“I always stand by the food truck, and before it happened I thought, ‘No, don’t go there. ‘Go to the store,'” she recalled. “I went into the store. Then I heard like three or four shots.”

“It’s got to be stopped with these teenagers,” Estevez said about the violence. “I don’t understand where they’re getting this s–t.”

Detectives were still trying determine what sparked the shooting and were searching the area for surveillance footage that could help them get a better understanding of what happened.

The transit worker’s alleged stabber, whom police identified as 52-year-old Jamar Banks, also attacked a 31-year-old man aboard a northbound No. 2 train at the 14th St. subway station in the West Village shortly after 6 p.m. on New Year’s Day, cops said.

The Downtown victim told police that Banks walked up to him and started an argument aboard the train before drawing a knife and stabbing him in the back.

Medics rushed the victim to Bellevue Hospital in stable condition. The stabber fled the subway station on foot, said police.

Banks’ alleged stabbing spree continued the following day when he attacked a 47-year-old off-duty station cleaner at the Pelham Parkway subway station around 6 a.m., according to police.

As in the earlier incident, Banks picked a fight with the transit worker before stabbing him in the back and armpit, cops said.

EMS transported the MTA employee to Jacobi Medical Center in stable condition, police said.

Banks fled the Bronx station on foot.

Police released surveillance images of the suspect in hopes the public will assist in tracking him down. He is described as 5-feet-11 and weighing 120 pounds, and was seen carrying a red suitcase.

Anyone with information on the suspect is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 800-577-TIPS. All calls are confidential.

The elderly victim told police she had just exited through the turnstiles at the Hoyt. St. subway station in Downtown Brooklyn when the thieves launched their attack around 6:07 p.m., police said.

The four females worked together to try to rip off the victim, beating her as they struggled to rip the handbag from her grasp, said police.

But the victim managed to escape the ambush with her property in hand, and the thieves fled the station none the richer.

Medics transported the victim to Brooklyn Hospital where she was treated for minor injuries.

Police released surveillance images of four suspects and are asking for the public’s help in tracking them down.

Robberies in the subway system have fallen more than 16% citywide year over year, with 453 robberies in 2024 compared to 541 in 2023, according to NYPD crime stats as of Dec. 29.

Crimes underground overall fell more than 5% last year, but the number of murders doubled in the subway, with 10 killed in 2024 compared to five the year before.

Anyone with information that could lead police to the robbers is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stopper’s Hotline at 800-577-TIPS.

The 38-year-old victim leaped in front of the southbound train as it entered the Sutter Ave.-Rutland Rd. station near E. 98th St. in Brownsville about 7:45 a.m., cops said.

The man died at the scene, causing the MTA to limit No. 3 and No. 4 train service between the Crown Heights-Utica Ave. and New Lots Ave. stations.

Commuters were urged to take buses to major Brooklyn transit hubs as the NYPD continues its investigation.

The 36-year-old mailman was on duty for the U.S. Postal Service when he stopped at Joe’s Grocery on Lenox Road near W. 118th St. to order a sandwich around 2:30 p.m., cops said.

When the postal worker placed his order, a woman there became enraged, claiming he had cut her in line and the two began shouting at each other, a witness told The News.

“It was over a sandwich,” said Janet Rich, who was in the deli buying coffee when the fight broke out. “It was, ‘I was next. No, I was next.’ It was for nothing.”

Rich said that she and another woman inside the store attempted to intervene, but that neither party appeared willing to stand down.

“I got in between them — twice,” said Rich. There was another woman with dreadlocks [who] said, ‘Don’t do this, you have a good job. Let this go.'”

The postal worker “took off his coat and said, ‘You want to stab me? I picked up his coat and put it back on. I was trying to prevent the fight.”

Rich described the woman as “huge” at about 6′ 5″ tall and said she appeared to be high on drugs, as she was literally “foaming at the mouth.”

The argument ended when the woman drew a small steak knife and stabbed the postal worker at least three times, Rich said.

“She started stabbing him and the next thing you know blood was everywhere,” Rich said.

Cellphone footage recorded by Rich shows the wounded postal worker lying on the deli floor in a pool of blood as a man attempts to help him.

Medics rushed the victim to Harlem Hospital, where he died.

The suspect fled to her apartment located on W. 118th St. just a few doors down from the deli, sources said.

A knife could be seen lying next to a pool of blood beyond police tape on Thursday.

Rich said she witnessed cops cuffing the woman and taking her into custody Thursday evening.

Charges were still pending Thursday night, cops said.

In a bizarre coincidence, Rich, who works as a hoist operator, was working at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan Thursday when another worker fell 40 feet to his death, and said she rode the elevator with medics to a third-floor ballroom where they would pronounce the man dead at the scene.

“What a day,” said Rich. “You can’t make this up.”