A hard-working Bronx home attendant was fatally stabbed outside her house by a robber, and several people – drawn by her frantic screams – chased the fleeing suspect and pointed police to his hiding place, cops said.
Lynette Luckett, 51, was walking home at 7:45 p.m. Monday when she was confronted by Daniel Castro, 41, outside 2049 Belmont Ave., where she lived with her brother and nephew, cops said.
She yelled when Castro tried to rob her and screamed again as he pulled out a knife and stabbed her in the back, police said.
“I heard somebody scream. I heard somebody going, ‘Help, brother, help! Help!’ “said Kevin Leslie, 27, one of her neighbors.
He raced outside, where the wounded Luckett told him, “He tried to rob me. He tried to rob me. He stabbed me in my back.”
Another neighbor, Jeffrey Jackson, 49, who had also heard her screams, ran outside and cradled the bleeding woman in his arms.
“She was wearing a white blouse and it was all red with blood,” he said. “I held her and I just kept telling her not to go to sleep.”
Then Kevin Leslie spotted a man walking away carrying a beer bottle in his left hand.
“He had his back to me, but he stood out. I ran towards him, then the guy looked back at me, seen me coming towards him and started running,” he said.
“He ran across the street, all the way to Crotona and 180th Street and turned. When I hit the corner, he was gone.”
Leslie said he figured the suspected robber was probably hiding under a car or in the bushes.
By this time Luckett’s nephews Sonny and Courtney caught up with Leslie and he said he told them, “He’s right here. Don’t leave. Don’t move. Don’t let him escape.”
Leslie said when he heard police sirens he flagged down cops and pointed out where the suspect was hiding. Cops said they found a bloodied knife near him outside 2079 Crotona Ave.
Castro was arrested and charged with murder and criminal possession of a weapon, police said.
Luckett was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where she died.
A native of Trinidad, she has five adult children who live there. She came here in 1985 and “worked long hours all day,” said her nephew Sonny Rahaman.
“She was a very sweet, a very nice lady,” said Kevin Leslie.