DA: City Slasher Admitted Crimes

The accused Manhattan slasher, Roland Codrington, 35 gave several incriminating statements to cops during lengthy interrogation after he was stopped inside a stolen car in the south Bronx on Christmas Eve, according to the Manhattan DAs office.

“Let them go. I’m the one you’re looking for,” Codrington, 35--who would eventually be charged with two murders, two attempted murders and one assault from his four day crime spree--is said to have told the cops when first busted his girlfriend and two others in the stolen car, according to the Manhattan DAs office.

The dark blue 2021 Mercedes belonging to Dr Bruce Maurice Henry, his second alleged homicide, still had its original plates on when the vehicle was flagged by a license reader in northern Manhattan around 9:26 pm Dec. 24, showing that the car belonged to pediatrician who was stabbed to death in a vicious attack inside Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park the day before. A short time after the license plate hit, cops pulled the car over on the Bronx side of the bridge on Dec. 24 around 9:30 pm at 166th St. and Jerome Ave.

After being questioned as to why he was inside Dr. Henry’s car the day after the doctor’s murder, the DA said Codrington told cops, “I am in a dead man’s car, what do you think it means?”

Codrington’s crime spree included a pre-midnight appearance at Teddy’s Bar and Grill, at 2171 Second Ave. which he entered at approximately 11:30 pm on Dec. 22 swinging a baseball bat and accompanied by a pit bull. Cops said he was apparently out for revenge after he was bounced from the establishment a week earlier. He smashed objects and pushed a bat to the neck of the female bartender behind the bar. Two male patrons came to her aid and Codrington was said to have slashed them, inflicting non-fatal wounds, before fleeing into nearby Marcus Garvey Park at 121st and Madison Ave. in East Harlem, cops said.

Comment “Caused Me to Snap”

According to the DA, he told cops on Christmas morning after a long night of questioning, “I walked to the park and a guy made a comment to me that caused me to snap.”

He said, “My friend had to stop me.” But cops said not before he had issued a vicious knife stabbing that left the victim for dead with at least 18 stab wounds to his torso, face and neck. Police at a press conference on Dec. 26 had declined to speculate why Dr. Henry was inside the park at 2:30 am, the approximate time of the murder. An unidentified male flagged down a cop around 2:40 am and told him there was a dead body on a path a short distance into the park.

“After, I was standing up and the guy was laying on the ground under me,” the DAs office said Codrington told cops under questioning.

Cops, who earlier obtained Codrington’s name from patrons after the attack at Teddy’s, used surveillance video from that incident to link him to a knife attack in the East Village on Dec. 19 which left 51 year old James Cunningham bleeding to death on the sidewalk at 214 Ave. A near E. 13th Street with a ten inch gash to his neck. He had finished a seltzer at nearby Spikes Pub when he bumped into Codrington’s girlfriend and a short dispute lasting 40 seconds ended in the deadly slashing.

Tosses Knife in Hudson River

According to cops, Cordington confessed to all three incidents in his one man crime spree. “I used the same knife [to stab Dr. Henry] that I used in the other two incidents,” the DAs office said Codrington told cops, adding, “I got rid of the knife in the Hudson River.”

Police said that a girlfriend, who has not been identified, was with Codrington when he allegedly stabbed Cunningham as well as in the Mercedes when Codrington was busted. Cops said in a Monday press conference that she has been questioned but not arrested.

Sam Roberts, a Legal Aid attorney who is representing Codrington, had not returned a call at the time of writing. The DAs office said Codrington was remanded to Rikers Island.