Michael Bookhart was knifed in the chest in the home he shared with the suspect on E. 138th St. near Brook Ave. in Mott Haven about 10:40 p.m. on Sunday, cops said.

The victim’s 23-year-old girlfriend, whose name was not immediately released, was arrested at the scene. Charges against her were pending.

A neighbor whose apartment shares a wall with the unit where the man was stabbed said she heard the couple arguing for about two hours, but she didn’t know any violence occurred until police arrived later.

“[Cops] knocked on my door to ask what I heard,” said Tiffany Boyce, 39. “All I heard was her yelling and then I heard the cops come.”

“It’s a regular thing for them. Always fighting every night,” Boyce added.

Medics rushed Bookhart to Lincoln Hospital, but he could not be saved.

“I never saw them together,” she added. “I just usually see her.”

The suspect was nice to her when they passed each other in the hallway.

“She just seemed normal,” Boyce said. “One time I locked myself out and she let me in.”

She said Bookhart was pleasant, too.

“He was quiet,” Boyce said. “I just seen him in passing, going up the stairs. He kept to himself.”

“My name is Waldo Mejia, so get ready to f–king suffer along with me!” the 29-year-old suspect shouted during his chaotic arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court.

Mejia faces murder, manslaughter and other charges for the Friday morning killing of 14-year-old Caleb Rijos near E. 138th St. and Lincoln Ave. as the victim was walking to school, just down the block where the suspect lives. Judge Margaret Martin ordered a mental health exam after his extended outburst in court.

At first, Mejia stood quietly before the judge, wearing the same black hoodie and gray pants as when police led him out of the 40th Precinct stationhouse a day earlier.

But his demeanor changed when a court officer started to touch his handcuffs. He turned his head to her and said, “Let me go. Let me go. I’mma catch you when I can.”

The court officer stayed quiet and Mejia ranted, yelling out profane remarks as court officers led him out of the room to cool down.

“I’m with Satan!” he yelled. “Pieces of s–t a– people! … Get ready to f–king suffer!”

Mejia’s defense lawyer, Paul Horowitz, sat down in the courtroom’s front row and exhaled, “Oh, boy.”

After about ten minutes Mejia was called back to see the judge.

Mejia walked in quietly and stood pin straight, looking forward at Martin, as he was arraigned for both Caleb’s murder and the attempted murder of a 38-year-old man police say he stabbed on Jan. 5 just half a block from where Caleb was killed.

In that case, Mejia jumped a stranger walking down stairs at the Third Ave.-E. 138th St. subway station, plunging a large knife into his left arm with such force that the blade perforated the limb, cut an artery and entered the victim’s chest cavity, according to a criminal complaint.

The victim needed life-saving surgery.

At the defense attorney’s request, the judge approved a mental health exam for Mejia, holding him without bail until his next court date Friday.

As the hearing ended, Mejia had another outburst, telling court officers as he was escorted out, “I’mma snap your neck!”

His screams and curses could he heard through the door as he was led out of the courtroom and he his rants included remarks about the “White House” and “al Qaeda,” a court officer said after the drama ended.

“He’s nuts,” the officer told reporters.

Mejia cursed out reporters Saturday as he was led from the Bronx NYPD stationhouse, screaming, “I don’t know what the f–k y’all doing here on this planet!…. Y’all f–k around and I’mma beat your a– like a f—ing adult when I catch y’all!”

Mejia plunged a serrated kitchen knife twice into the Caleb’s chest, cutting through his heart and lung, police said. The teen, who was only a block from home when stabbed, stayed alive long enough to call his father, begging for help in his final moments.

Mejia’s arrest came as Gov. Hochul announced she’d introduce legislation in the state budget making it easier to involuntarily commit those suffering from mental illness to hospitals. The governor cited an uptick in violent crimes on the NYC subway system — including an incident where a homeless woman was fatally set on fire aboard a Brooklyn F train in Coney Island.

On Saturday, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch described Mejia as “a violent recidivist with documented mental health interactions with the NYPD.”

“The systems we have in place to deal with repeat offenders and people with severe mental health issues continue to fail us,” she added.

Less than two months before Caleb’s killing, Mejia went ballistic in his own apartment building on Alexander Ave., less than 750 feet away from where he ambushed the teen, police said. In that Nov. 27 incident, he pounded on a neighbor’s door and used a knife to repeatedly stab the 43-year-old victim’s Ring doorbell camera, busting it, cops said.

He was arrested on criminal mischief and harassment charges, which are not eligible for bail. His release left his targeted neighbor fearing for his life, the neighbor told The Daily News.

Cops took one person in for questioning following the 2:45 a.m. shooting inside Carroll Park, officials said.

The unidentified victim, who is believed to be in his 20s, was in the park on President St. near Smith St. in Carroll Gardens — hanging out by some benches with a group of friends — when the suspect pulled a gun and opened fire.

A woman who lives in the area and gave her name as Alex said she saw two men who were detained by police after the shooting. She described the shooting in her community as “surprising and incredibly sad.”

“It was definitely multiple gunshots, which I thought were actually fireworks at first,” Alex said. “There was one person on the ground. By that point there were several police.”

The victim was struck once in the torso.

The gunman was targeting the group when the shooting occurred, witnesses said.

A man, 22, who wanted to be unnamed and lives in the area, said he was awakened by the sound of arguing that broke out prior to the shooting.

“A guy screamed louder than the other remarks, ‘You’re done! You’re done!’” And then a reply, ‘OK,’ then followed by gunshots,” he said. “They were loud. They were fast.”

A video reviewed by the Daily News shows responding officers performing CPR on the victim as an ambulance arrives. A few feet away, additional officers are seen with a possible suspect in custody.

EMS rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved. Cops were trying to confirm his identity.

On Saturday morning cops were scouring the bucolic block-long park, looking for additional evidence and surveillance videos that could help them understand what happened.

While neighbors said it’s common for people to be in the small park at night, they were surprised at the violence.

Carroll Park, one of the oldest parks in the city, is surrounded by $3 million brownstones in what’s considered one of the safest communities in the city.

There were no homicides all last year in the 76th Precinct, which covers Carroll Gardens. Only one occurred in 2023.

Shootings in the precinct also dropped last year, from 11 the previous year down to 4, cops said.

Yet felony assaults are up 16% in the area, from 104 in 2023 to 121 as of this past Dec. 29, cops said.

Criminal charges against the man in custody were pending Saturday.

Waldo Mejia, 29, jumped young Caleb Rijos near the corner of E. 138th St. and Lincoln Ave. at about 9:30 a.m. Friday morning, jamming a serrated kitchen knife twice into the boy’s chest, cutting through his heart and lung, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said.

The mortally wounded teen ran off down E. 138th St. toward Alexander Ave., where he called his father, begging for help.

“He told his father he couldn’t breathe and he was scared,” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said Saturday. “His father heard him dying. It’s unfathomable to think about the level of this tragedy.”

Mejia was arrested early Saturday for stabbing Caleb to death, as well as for another random stabbing at the Third Ave. — E. 138th St. subway stop on Jan. 5.

The two separate attacks occurred about a half-block from each other. Mejia lives nearby, cops said.

Mejia, who was wearing a black hoodie, gray pants, black socks and white flip flops was walked out of the 40th precinct by cops Saturday afternoon where he cursed out reporters as he was placed in the backseat of a squad car.

“I don’t know what the f–k y’all doing here on this planet!” Mejia yelled to reporters. “Y’all f–k around and I’mma beat your a– like a f—ing adult when I catch y’all!”

Mejia has a long criminal history with four unsealed arrests, Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Saturday. Two of those arrests involved knives. A third involved a gun.

Mejia was busted in November after a 43-year-old resident of a building on Alexander Ave. and E. 139th St. in Mott Haven who “feared for his safety” reported Mejia for harassing him and banging on his door repeatedly. Mejia proceeded to stab the victim’s doorbell camera, damaging it, cops said.

He was arrested soon after the incident and charged with criminal mischief and released without bail. The charge was not bail eligible.

“He is a violent recidivist with documented mental health interactions with the NYPD,” Tisch said at a press conference at police headquarters Saturday. “Today, a 14-year-old boy is dead, a family is devastated, a city is in mourning and the systems we have in place to deal with repeat offenders and people with severe mental health issues continue to fail us.”

Prosecutors charged Mejia with murder, manslaughter and weapons possession. His arraignment in Bronx Criminal Court was pending.

The charges for the Jan. 5 attack were also pending, Clark said.

Caleb’s devastated father told the Daily News Friday night that his family was still trying to piece together what happened.

“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.”

Caleb’s family declined to comment Saturday after Majia’s arrest was made.

“The detectives told us,” a relative mumbled through a closed door. “We just want our privacy now.”

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

The teen ultimately collapsed between two parked cars. Witnesses called 911 and EMS rushed the teen to Lincoln Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved.

A worker at the Gasolina station who is also a friend of the teen’s family overheard Caleb’s call to his father.

“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.”

Caleb didn’t deserve to die in the streets, the family friend said.

“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.”

Caleb was a student at Bronx Leadership Academy and played for the school’s football team, friends and neighbors said.

“That’s a baby. He’s still a baby,” a resident of Caleb’s building told the News. “It’s horrible. They be going to school now and that’s gonna happen to them?

“He was just beginning life,” she said somberly. “That really hurt me.”

Kenny said his detectives distributed surveillance images of the attacker to the public as well as all officers on patrol. A short time later, a transit cop said the man looked exactly like the suspect wanted for a Jan. 5 stabbing at the Third Ave.—E. 138th St. subway station.

In that case, a 38-year-old man was heading down the subway stairs heading to the No. 6 train, when the suspect jumped him from behind for no reason and stabbed him in the left arm, Kenny said.

The victim was taken to an area hospital, where he received stitches for the wound, cops said.

“A police officer from the transit bureau recognized the perpetrator from the Jan. 5 incident and notified detectives,” Kenny said during a press conference late Friday night. “We quickly realized that the two cases were similar.”

Detectives conducted a 1,000-foot radius search of the area and checked pervious crimes involving knives “and got an interesting result,” Tisch said.

“Just 750 feet away [from the killing] there was an earlier crime in which an individual stabbed a Ring camera,” she said.

That incident led police to Mejia.

“When detectives showed the arresting officer in that case the images taken from Friday’s stabbing, she immediately recognized the perp as Mr. Mejia,” Tisch said. “Officers now knew who they were looking for and where he lived. They obtained footage from the same Ring camera he had stabbed weeks prior and saw him leaving his residence a few minutes before Friday’s stabbing.”

Cops grabbed Mejia returning to his building just after 12 a.m. Saturday. He was wearing the same sneakers and pants he wore during the stabbing.

“And he was in possession of a bloody knife,” Tisch said.

While the area where Caleb was killed is known for gang activity, cops found no evidence that the teen had run with a gang.

“This was a young man on the right path in life and was tragically taken from his parents,” Kenny said.

Mejia’s arrest comes as Gov. Hochul plans to introduce legislation in the state budget that would make it easier to involuntarily commit those suffering from mental illness to hospitals.

When she made her announcement, Hochul cited an uptick in violent crimes on the NYC subway system — including an incident where a homeless woman was fatally set on fire aboard a Brooklyn F train.

Mayor Adams has supported Hochul’s legislation — and has called for changing the state’s civil commitment laws.

“We must stop being so idealistic that we’re not realistic,” he said.

Tisch said Caleb’s “senseless and tragic” death should be a “call to action” to take the violently mentally ill off city streets and give them the help they need.

“The status quo is not working for New Yorkers,” she said. “We do not have a system to put the rights and needs of citizens first.

“Something has to give,” she said.

Carlos Rivas, 17, was much more likely to help a resident carry groceries up the stairs of the Bronx building where he lived with his family than he was to get into a curbside clash with a total stranger.

“He was a very nice kid,” said Rivas’ crying neighbor, Anita Birmingham, 65. “Every time I saw him he was very respectful. He would help everybody. It’s crazy. He was very respectful. He was not one of those kids you saw out in the street getting into difficulty for nothing. He was very family-oriented. I can’t believe it. I would never thought [it would be] him.”

Cops said Rivas and a 22-year-old friend got into a fight on Friday with an older man at an East Harlem Korean restaurant.

The caught-on-camera clash shows the man stabbing Rivas outside the storefront eatery after a scuffle that apparently started as they entered around 6:15 p.m.

Cops arrested Saul Sanchez, 62, and charged him with murder, assault and weapons possession. He was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday and ordered held without bail.

It was unclear what set off the fight.

Surveillance video shows Rivas’ friend bumping into the suspect when the three entered the restaurant. Moments later, Rivas and his friend are wrestling with the man as they exit the eatery. The older man grabs Rivas by the collar and stabs him in the chest and stomach before both fall to the ground.

As the struggle continues, Rivas’ friend grabs a chair left outside the K-Street Food restaurant, and strikes the stabber over the head with it before jumping on the stabber’s back, the video shows. The stabber ran off when Rivas collapsed.

Cops said Sanchez initially fled the scene before he returned and was arrested. Sanchez claimed he pulled his knife after he was hit on the sidewalk with a chair, according to police. But the video shows that Sanchez was hit with the chair after the stabbing and that Rivas’ friend used the chair to try to defend Rivas from the attack.

“The video of the incident … shows two young men fighting with a 62-year-old man,” Sanchez’ lawyer, Kenneth Gilbert, told the Daily News Monday. “I have spoken to several of his friends and neighbors who say very dear things about him. Mr. Sanchez is very remorseful about what has happened.”

Gilbert said Sanchez went home to wash the blood off his face and to bring his dog home, although no dog appears in any of the videos. He returned 15 minutes later, according to prosecutors. Gilbert said Sanchez suffered a cut to his head during the fight. He appeared in court with a bandage wrapped around his head.

Medics took Rivas to Harlem Hospital but he couldn’t be saved, cops said. The friend, who was stabbed in the left arm, was also taken to an area hospital.

Sanchez had no prior criminal record.

Gilbert said Sanchez, whose mother is suffering from dementia, was the sole breadwinner, and has been happily married for years.

Friends and neighbors said they had a hard time connecting Rivas to the clash.

“I’m heartbroken,” said a neighbor named Caprice, 35. ”He’s never in the way of anybody. He’s never into trouble. He’s very quiet. I’m completely shocked and heartbroken. We lost a good young man in the community.”

Another neighbor, Joanna Sosa, 36, said his daughter and Rivas were close friends. Sosa was taping laminated pictures of Rivas to a cardboard poster board that she left in the lobby so friends and neighbors could scribble personal tributes to the teen.

“That way his mom can have this as something to understand and see how much he really was loved and cared for,” Sosa said. “He was a kind soul. If anybody needed help with groceries, older people, even me — he would help me out.”

Sosa said she was struggling to understand the stabbing.

“No matter what the situation is, let’s say if they bumped into you or it’s a tight space, you have to be more conscious of the fact that you can’t be walking around with so much anger and so much hatred so you get to that point of killing a child,” she said.

“Maybe you didn’t have the intention of killing him but at the end of the day you have to understand that you’re using a weapon against somebody and this child had no weapons on him.”

The horrific stabbing was hauntingly similar to the murder of on-duty postal worker Ray Hodges, who was knifed to death in a Harlem deli a day earlier during an argument over his spot on a sandwich line, cops said.

Hodges, a USPS mail carrier who worked out of the Morningside post office in Harlem, was stabbed by 28-year-old Jaia Cruz at Joe’s Grocery on Lenox Ave. near W. 118th St. at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, police said.

Victim Carlos Rivas and a 22-year-old friend had just made an order at K-Street Food near the corner of E. 108th St. and Second Ave. at 6:15 p.m. Friday when they came to blows with 62-year-old suspect Saul Sanchez, who was also a customer at the restaurant, cops said.

“It’s a fight for I guess nothing,” said Moon Shin, an employee of K-Street Food. “So sad. They maybe fight outside first. I don’t see.”

Shin, 66, was working the counter when all three men were in the small storefront eatery.

“[The older man] makes an order and pay and [he] walked out, but two young guys [were] pushing everywhere,” she recalled. “Then they [went] outside fighting.”

The horrific stabbing is hauntingly similar to the murder of on-duty postal worker Ray Hodges, who was knifed to death in a Harlem deli a day earlier during an argument over his spot on a sandwich line, cops said.

Harrowing video obtained by the Daily News shows Rivas and his friend wrestling with a man as they scramble out of the Korean restaurant.

Once they hit the sidewalk, the man grabs Rivas by the collar and stabs him in the chest and stomach before both fall to the ground.

“It was straight stabs,” recalled the co-owner of the Your Highness smoke shop next door to the Korean restaurant, who saw the fight on his surveillance camera. “[The man] was holding [Rivas]. He was holding him by his collar.”

As the struggle continues, Rivas’ friend grabs a chair left outside K-Food and strikes the stabber over the head with it before jumping on the stabber’s back, the video shows.

The stabber lets the teen go and was confronting the friend when Rivas suddenly collapses face first onto the sidewalk.

“Just seeing the kid on the floor that way was horrible,” the smoke shop owner, who would only identify himself as Ray, told The News. “Watching the video, you see it now today but not realizing these are just the last few minutes of his life.

“It’s disturbing and it’s sad that his life had to end that way,” he said. “[Rivas] was dazed and you could see him at that point just fall to the ground. And then his friend that was with him realized that he was stabbed and was holding his chest to stop the blood from leaking.”

The stabber ran off when Rivas collapsed. His friend continued to comfort him as police were called to the scene.

Rivas remained conscious and was sitting up and talking to his friend, the video shows.

EMS took Rivas to Harlem Hospital, but he couldn’t be saved, cops said. The friend, who was stabbed in the left arm, was also taken to an area hospital.

As police investigated, Sanchez returned to the scene and surrendered. He was taken into custody and was charged with murder, assault and weapons possession.

His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Saturday.

Police did not immediately disclose what sparked the fight.

Shin, who provided the victim with napkins to staunch the bleeding, believes Rivas and his friend had gotten into an argument with Sanchez before they began fighting in her restaurant.

Video shows Rivas and his pal leaving a smoke shop before entering K-Street Food. They step up to the door at the same moment Sanchez, wearing a fur-black coat with a fur collar, approaches.

Rivas’ friend first opens the door. Sanchez grabs the handle, opens the door wider and was about to step in when Rivas’ friend jumps in ahead of him.

Rivas was the last one to enter the eatery, the video shows.

The two young men ordered before Sanchez and the three had words inside the eatery, but Shin had no idea what they were saying to each other.

“They just [began] pushing here then pushing in the door” before they went outside, Shin recalled. “I never seen people dying right in front of my face.”

When Rivas fell, Shin “was just thinking of his mother,” she recalled.

“I’m a mother, too,” she said solemnly.

The murdered teen lived in the Melrose section of the Bronx, about three miles from where he was killed, officials said.

He was the second city teen to die violently on Friday, according to cops.

A half hour earlier in the Bronx, two boys, both 17, were shot during a gang-related attack on Macombs Road near Cromwell Ave. in Highbridge at about 5:45 p.m., police said.

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

The 17-year-old victim was shot in the stomach and was also taken to St. Barnabas, cops said. No arrests have been made.

Hodges, a USPS mail carrier who worked out of the Morningside post office in Harlem, was stabbed by 28-year-old Jaia Cruz at Joe’s Grocery on Lenox Ave. near W. 118th St. at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, police said.

Witnesses said Hodges was about to make an order at the deli counter when Cruz accused him of cutting her place in line.

The argument escalated and Cruz stabbed Hodges five times with a steak knife in the neck, chest and arm, according to prosecutors.

Cruz was charged with murder and was ordered held without bail at her arraignment.

“The one thing we were able to fall back on was people wouldn’t forget and they would always stand beside us,” said James Brosi, president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association. “Unfortunately twenty-some-odd-years later, people are starting to forget. It is unimaginable that we would have to come down here and ask Congress to do the right thing.”

After two failed votes by the GOP-led House of Representatives, Congress passed a stopgap bill to fund the government Friday, but it removed legislation that would have fully funded the World Trade Center Health Program through 2040, 9/11 advocates said.

“Part of what was left on the table was the bill that would provide the health care and the compensation for the sick and dying New York City firefighters, police officers, and first responders and civilians that were affected by what happened down there,” said Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro.

Ansbro stood in front of  Engine Co. 10/Ladder Co. 10 in the bitter cold, across the street from the World Trade Center.

“The incoming politicians and those returning were given a mandate to make America great again,” he said. “We know that you cannot make America great again if you leave behind those that are sick and those that are dying that answered the call on 9/11.”

The World Trade Center Health Program was created in 2011 as part of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. It initially was supposed to run for five years, but was extended until 2090 as more people were sickened with 9/11 illnesses.

As of September, more than 130,000 first responders and survivors have enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program. Just over 7,000 people enrolled this year alone, according to the program’s website.

Republicans abandoned Wednesday a bipartisan plan to prevent a government shutdown after Musk took to his social media platform X demanding the bill fail, and Trump followed his lead. That led House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to essentially rip up the deal days before a shutdown deadline.

On Sunday, Brosi kept his criticism of the stopgap bill nonpartisan.

“This is not a Republican or Democratic problem. This is a United States problem,” he said. “We restored stability, we restored hope, and we did the job very few people were willing to do. … It is unthinkable at 23 years later that we should all be here on a 17-degree day standing outside this memorial begging for the funding to recognize the people who did the work.”

When asked if he had reached out to Trump, Ansbro said “he’s currently not in power and we did not expect that tweets from him and Elon Musk would derail the bill, but we look forward to sitting down with him and making our case and letting him know that New Yorkers expect him to remember New York.”

He added, “We’ll see you next year. … We’re not here to point a finger at anyone for what happened that day. We’re here to let everyone know that we’re not going away.”

Chilling video obtained by the Daily News shows the woman standing near the door of a stopped subway car at the Coney-Island-Stillwell Ave. station, her clothes ablaze, while a man sits on a bench on the platform a few feet away and casually watches.

“Officers who were on patrol on an upper level of that station smelled and saw smoke and went to investigate. What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said of the macabre crime. “With the help of an MTA employee and a fire extinguisher, the flames were put out. Unfortunately, it was too late, and the victim was pronounced [dead] on the scene.

“Unbeknownst to the officers who responded, the suspect had stayed on the scene and was seated on a bench on the platform, just outside the train car,” Tisch added.

Police body cameras captured crystal clear images of the man, which were then disseminated to the public. Three teenagers recognized the man from the photos and called 911, enabling NYPD and transit officers to work together to arrest him, Tisch said.

The horrifying scene was captured on disturbing video obtained by The News. “This is a person right here! Oh s–t!” a voice can be heard on the cellphone video as the woman is seen engulfed in flames while what looks like a police officer walks by and talks into a radio.

The woman’s identity was not immediately released, but sources told The News she appeared to be homeless and was sleeping in a stationary F train at the Coney Island-Stillwell Ave. subway stop at about 7:30 a.m. when the suspect set her on fire.

“A person of interest is in custody. So now we’re calling upon the rest of the justice system to step up and do their jobs,” Chief of Transit Joseph Gulotta said at the Sunday press conference. “There must be strong, swift consequences on this person, and I use that term lightly, who committed this brutal, brutal homicide. There is no room in civilized society for people like him to be walking around.”

The victim and suspect did not appear to know each other and had no prior interaction before the suspect lit the woman on fire, Gulotta said.

The suspect’s identity was not immediately released, but Gulotta noted the man had immigrated to the U.S. from Guatemala in 2018.

“It’s foul. It’s wrong. Nobody deserves to get burned up, no matter if she’s homeless,” said Kenny Cruz, who was sitting outside a convenience store outside the Coney Island/Stilwell Avenue subway station in a wheelchair on Sunday. “My heart goes out to that lady.”

Victim Brittany Webb’s accused killer Lamont Wilson was drunk and had been told he had to leave her apartment when he went berserk and stabbed her and another guest — who was holding Webb’s 4-year-old daughter, according to court papers.

“You took my child for no reason just because she asked you to leave her house,” Webb’s mother, Pamela Smith, said from South Carolina. “I didn’t expect this. And it’s so heartbreaking.”

Wilson, 46, is charged with murder, manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child for the explosion of violence inside the victim’s apartment on Macombs Road near Inwood Ave. in Highbridge about 3:30 a.m. Dec. 6.

“He’s somebody that she thought she could trust,” Smith, 51, said of the suspect. “For him to do this to her— she called him friend? My baby’s (grandkids) called him uncle. He done slept on her couch. She done fed him. He didn’t have to do that to my baby.”

“My baby was a good girl,” she added. “She was a caring mother. She did anything for her kids. She was always doing things for everybody else. To feed anybody if they hungry, give them something to drink if they thirsty. They ain’t got a smile, give them yours.”

A law enforcement source said the suspect argued with another person in the second-floor apartment and was chased out earlier in the evening. He returned and got into an argument with Webb, 38, the source said. Webb’s mother told the Daily News her daughter asked a drunken Wilson to leave because he was loud and boisterous.

“She told him to calm down because her kids were asleep,” Smith said, describing a first-hand account from an upstairs neighbor who was also visiting Webb that night. “If he can’t calm down he had to leave.”

When Wilson flipped out and refused to leave, a 46-year-old friend of Webb’s scooped up Webb’s 4-year-old daughter and fled into a bedroom with Webb and locked the door, the source said. Meanwhile the visiting upstairs neighbor ran home to get her cell phone to call 911.

Wilson started banging on the bedroom door, threatening to kill Webb’s other two children, ages 4 and 2, who were in another room, the source said.

He got into the bedroom and attacked Webb with a knife, the source said. That’s when Webb grabbed a hammer and hit Wilson in the head, the source said, but that wasn’t enough to stop him from stabbing her multiple times in the chest and back, mortally wounding her.

Wilson also swung his knife at the friend, stabbing him in the leg as he held Webb’s young daughter, the criminal complaint alleges. Wilson fled but was nabbed by cops later in the day.

Webb, who was nicknamed “Country,” met her accused killer about six years ago when she moved to New York from South Carolina, Smith said. Wilson sometimes crashed on her couch and Webb’s children knew him as “Uncle Rob,” she said.

Webb’s mom said she’d spoken to Wilson on FaceTime in the past and he assured her he’d look out for Webb, telling Smith, “You ain’t got to worry about Country.”

“If she need to the grocery store or somewhere around, he watched the kids for her while she went to the grocery store. If he was hungry, she fed him. If he needed somewhere to sleep, she gave him somewhere to sleep,” Smith said. “She was too good for him. She was good to him when he couldn’t even feed his self.”

“And then you turn around and you just do this to her? Nobody deserve to go out like that,” she added. “He didn’t have to do that to my baby. My baby got three kids. She was the only child I had.”

After the murder, Webb’s oldest daughter had an impossible question, Smith recounted: “That’s our friend. Why’d he do that? He’s our uncle Rob. Why did Uncle Rob do that to my mom?”

Wilson’s lawyer, Javier Solano, told The News his client made a statement to police that he was acting in self defense.

“He was hit in the head. He certainly had stitches,” Solano said. “Like many things in life, there are usually different sides to the story, sometimes multiple sides to the story…. There clearly is something else going on.”

Wilson’s mother, Natalie Washington, 64, described her son as protective of her.

“I’m in shock. He’s not a violent person,” she said. “Even when he drinks he wasn’t really violent. That’s what I’m trying to wrap my head around…. He would not start a fight, but he would finish one.”

Wilson survived a shooting in the early 2000s, and that changed his outlook on life, his mother said.

“On a normal day for him he’d give you the shirt off his back,” Washington said. “He had another young lady that he dated her and the kids loved him.”

Webb, a stay-at-home mom, was still reeling from shooting death of her half-brother when she was slain not even a month later. Her sibling, 37-year-old Nigel Phillips, was shot to death in a home in Gaffney, S.C. on Nov. 8.

“It hurt her so bad because she wasn’t able to make it to his funeral,” Smith said. “She’s been going through it since.”

Smith described her daughter, who went by the nickname “Country,” as a religious woman devoted to her children.

“My baby was a beautiful singer,” Smith said. “She used to sing at church. She used to sing at people’s funerals. She can write. It’s so many friends she lost, she wrote poems for their funerals.”

Webb’s childhood was also marked by tragedy — her father was shot to death in Ohio when she was just 10. The case remains unsolved.

Webb had planned to come down to South Carolina about two weeks before Christmas with her children to visit her mother. Instead her mom had to come up to the Bronx and pick up Webb’s children so they could stay with her.

Webb was arrested for a pair of violent episodes before her death. On June 1, she was charged with beating and stomping a woman inside Webb’s Bronx apartment building that day.

And on Dec. 1, just five days before she was killed, Webb allegedly smashed the front windshield and the back and passenger-side windows of a red Honda Accord with an axe about a half-mile away from her home. She then swung the axe at the car’s owner and another man when they approached her, according to a criminal complaint against her.

It wasn’t immediately clear what prompted either incident but Webb’s mother claimed her daughter had acted in self-defense. Smith said the incidents were unrelated to her daughter’s murder.

Webb was released without bail after both arrests and was due back in court Jan. 16 to face the charges, which include assault and harassment.

With Julian Roberts-Grmla

The two friends were on their way to meeting up at a bus stop on Seward Ave. near Pugsley Ave. in Castle Hill when one of them, Merkel Washington, was confronted by three men and a woman at gunpoint.

Washington said his 24-year-old friend Tyreek Moore was half a block ahead and turned around when he saw his friend in trouble about 5:55 p.m. Sunday.

“The only reason Tyreek came back was because he turned around and saw his best friend being f—ed up,” Washington said. “He came back to ask, `What happened?’” They asked him, ‘You want to die?’ That’s exactly what (the gunman) said: ‘You want to die?’”

Cops confirm Moore was fatally shot trying to stop his friend from being mugged. Police say the killer’s gun initially jammed.

“I saw him lift the gun,” Washington said of the shooter. “He tried to shoot it the first time. The gun didn’t shoot. Then he fidgeted with the gun. He upped it again.”

“We started walking away,” Washington added.

“They did not need to shoot him at all. Tyreek did not come with no aggression. He ain’t trying to touch nobody. He asked, ‘What’s going on?’ That’s all he asked.”

Medics rushed Moore to Jacobi Medical Center but he could not be saved.

Washington said the gunman fired only one shot. He said the crook would have probably fired more if his weapon wasn’t malfunctioning.

He tearfully remembered his friend’s last words.

“He said, ‘I’m hit,’” Washington said. “Instantly, once he touched the ground, he started trying to close his eyes. I kept trying to keep them up. I said, ‘Ty, I’m right here, don’t close your eyes.’

“I’m screaming for help. All these private houses. Ain’t nobody come help?”

The crooks stole Washington’s cell phone and wallet, cops say. But he refused to tell them the password and so the gunman pistol-whipped him.

“He hit me in the face. I stumbled. They pushed me up against the car.” Washington said. “Then he started hitting me in my face for the password in my phone.”

That’s when Moore intervened and paid with his life. The muggers ran off and have not been caught. The three male crooks were dressed in black and the woman in gray, police say.

Cops say Washington has been arrested 19 times, including for robbery and assault.

Washington, who was treated and released from the same hospital where his best friend died, gathered with other pals Monday morning at the site of the shooting.

“He was a good person,” Washington said. ”He was a genuine person. Ty wasn’t a person who showed people fake love. It just feels unreal.”

NYPD released surveillance pictures of the suspects, and is asking anyone with information to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).